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Employers are mining the data their workers generate

wsj.com

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Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#31

Post by president »

commandlinefan wrote: post #27
BillSaysThis wrote: post #2

"McKesson has not yet determined what changes it will make as a result of the findings, but has considered adopting a more open office plan to encourage more discussion between employees." Sure, that's going to help with retention.

It will, actually. It works like this: make the working environment so miserable that the only people who will stay are people who absolutely don’t have any other options and will never speak up or organize against abuse. Bingo, you have a group of people who will never go anywhere!

You may be joking but it's true. This is essentially the core of why companies hire H1-B workers.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#32

Post by ziddoap »

ereyes01 wrote: post #30
ziddoap wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, at least at our tier, I cannot access private messages.

Even if weren't possible now, it may be possible in the future because Slack (in practice) owns and controls that data without any oversight from you. Anything you say might be deleted after a while, or might be held indefinitely.

Well... Yeah. I didn't intend to imply that it will never be a feature (it might already be in higher tiers), and I never intended to imply anything about Slack's data retention.

I was just stating that at the moment, at my tier, I am unable to see private messages.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#33

Post by Topgamer7 »

"I’m not all tinfoil hat or anything" - To be honest, you'd only be a tinfoiler if it wasn't the case. We can guarantee in this information age, your information is collected, potentially by multiple parties. You can rest assured that if your internet traffic hits US network nodes, they are collecting at least some data. A good example is the Kazakhstan mitm stuff going on. We know the US tries to backdoor encryption algo's. They are just less blatant about it. You can guarantee that China, the UK and numerous other governments are at least trying to listen.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#34

Post by QuinnWilton »

_o-O-o_ wrote: post #6

I know this is a cheap potshot, but who has a keyboard setup like that? https://images.wsj.net/im-90409?width=1260&size=0.6666666666... And the caption: Diana Hubbard, working from her home office in Texas, says she does not communicate about her private life on work devices at all. PHOTO: JONATHAN ZIZZO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

My setup at home is a 3-foot monitor that I sometimes split-screen Mac and Windows on. I don't like to use Mac keyboards on Windows (and vice-versa), so rather than using Synergy I have two keyboards / mice at the desk -- one on a tray, and one on top.

It works nicely for me.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#35

Post by goatinaboat »

ziddoap wrote: post #26
goatinaboat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a complete lack of understanding of people People? Human resources . You know, things you use up and discard, like any resource.

"Human People Department" doesn't sound quite as pithy.

HR workers refer to themselves as “HR professionals” and it’s not just because “Human Resources Resources” sounds silly

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#37

Post by Duladian »

_o-O-o_ wrote: post #6

I know this is a cheap potshot, but who has a keyboard setup like that? https://images.wsj.net/im-90409?width=1260&size=0.6666666666... And the caption: Diana Hubbard, working from her home office in Texas, says she does not communicate about her private life on work devices at all. PHOTO: JONATHAN ZIZZO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

In my experience I've yet to encounter a USB switch that will forward the LCD display data properly to the G15 keyboard. Although, I was using cheap USB and KVMs switches.

Another good question is who uses an overpriced "gamer" keyboard for work?

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#38

Post by president »

Moru wrote: post #15
seneca wrote: post #5

The idea that McKesson does this, along with their completely tone deaf idea of adding open offices to increase retention, points to a bigger issue: a complete lack of understanding of people. These people running these companies are utterly detached from the reality that their work force lives day to day, such that they think implementing one of the most universally hated office schemes and mass surveillance are way…

The only reason a company switches to open offices is to save money, just like the removing of free sodas. The will claim any other reason officially though.

Another valid reason is so management can monitor more people at one time and make sure they're working (busily typing away at their keyboard).

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#39

Post by MegaButts »

jedberg wrote: post #14

People keep forgetting that equipment and subscriptions are your employers property and data, not yours. They have the right to access anything they pay for without telling you. It's important to remain aware of this any time you do anything for work. Back before we had computers, there was nothing stopping a company from opening every memo that came through the mail room and recording every phone conversation and op…

> there was nothing stopping a company from opening every memo that came through the mail room

I hope I'm misunderstanding this, because I read it as saying they can open your mail...which I thought was a felony taken very seriously.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#40

Post by TeMPOraL »

ziddoap wrote: post #8
seneca wrote: post #5

The idea that McKesson does this, along with their completely tone deaf idea of adding open offices to increase retention, points to a bigger issue: a complete lack of understanding of people. These people running these companies are utterly detached from the reality that their work force lives day to day, such that they think implementing one of the most universally hated office schemes and mass surveillance are way…

This is what I really am having trouble understanding. How disconnected from reality do you need to be to think surveillance and converting to an open office is going to somehow increase retention of employees?

I'm guessing some salesmen sold them on this idea.

Sometimes, Hanlon's razor works in reverse: don't attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by m̵a̵l̵i̵c̵e̵ marketing.

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