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Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#61

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Loughla wrote: post #22
NullPrefix wrote: post #15

Systems like that are actually great for the employees, because every minute is accounted for and when you stay an hour longer at work you can expect to be paid for it at overtime rate.

Not when everyone is classed as Exempt staff and therefore ineligible for Overtime.

It's weird that exempt employees can be required to clock in and out. My current employer does this but claims it for tracking capital vs operational expenses and has nothing to do with productivity or policy enforcement. I'm rather skeptical. One thing is for sure, the definition of what constitutes an exempt employee has expanded far beyond its original intent.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#62

Post by factsaresacred »

speedgoose wrote: post #39
factsaresacred wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'2 hours lunch break and 1hr for prayer breaks' and the work is low quality. You don't need to track those people, you need to replace them.

A 2 hours lunch break is the standard in France.

Maybe you can get away with being absent for 3 hours of the workday if you're competent - but according to the OP they are not.

Seems unfair to one's employer and one's colleagues.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#63

Post by Ididntdothis »

Mangalor wrote: post #43
Ididntdothis wrote: post #27

I am pretty sure this will come back just slightly modified. And other companies will do the same. It will be really hard to stop the trend toward total surveillance. It gets cheaper and cheaper every year and more capable.

What should be the response of workers?

individually it’s very hard to do something. Unions or laws would help setting up a framework for acceptable workplace conditions. But neither of them are especially liked in the US.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#64

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AceyMan wrote: post #47
pietrovismara wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't treat reasonably your tools. That's how some companies see their employees.

You believe this?—ask any tradesman, mechanic or PE—"Take care of your tools and they will take care of you" is gospel in those fields. The same, then, should apply to "living tools" if your analogy obtains.

There's plenty of people in the trades who consider their tools disposable like work gloves but on a longer time line.

In most of the western world labor is so absurdly expensive compared to material goods that it usually makes sense for anyone paid by the job (most people in the trades) to just treat tools as a cost of doing business and treat them whichever way gets the jobs done the fastest.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#65

Post by banannaise »

GordonS wrote: post #51
nonbirithm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, in this day and age, how on earth did this get enough support at the management level to pilot it? They valued maximizing the amount of profit one worker produces over privacy.

I rather doubt that miserable, downtrodden employees are more productive than happy, motivated ones are.

They don't teach that in MBA classes. They just teach that employees who aren't at their desks aren't being productive right now.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#66

Post by WaitWaitWha »

crmrc114 wrote: post #52
uk_programmer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually happens a lot in call centres. This is why I am very polite to those on the phones because I know they are likely to be working in a horrid office.

At least in the US I know a number of call centers that have been sued into bankruptcy for attempting to use phone agent login status as a timeclock. The worst of these were telling staff that they had to login to their computers and get everything ready on their own time... then they would be paid once they logged in... On another note, I feel that such abuses really need to start to incur jail time for management s…

>To be honest (guessing from the 'UK' part of your username) I figured that the UK would have better call center protections than the US.... from your post it sounds like it may be just as bad as the US.

Interesting. How will this revelation impact your future comparative thinking?

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#67

Post by consp »

rudiv wrote: post #9
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pooping during work hours, that's like stealing from your employer. Just hold it in like those dedicated staff at Amazon.

I seem to remember a social media story about someone who was fired for posting a meme on their Facebook account that said "Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime; That's why I poop on company time".

If my boss was monitoring me like that, out of work time even more, I would place a GPS tracker on his car as privacy obviously doesn't matter and neither does personal time.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#68

Post by crystaldev »

factsaresacred wrote: post #35
wiradikusuma wrote: post #30

At work, my staff (20ish developers) usually clock in/out sharp bcoz of attendance, but they take 2+ hours lunch break and ~1hr for prayer breaks (2x within work hour), which I don't mind. But what frustrates me is their work is slow and low quality (not everyone), and I do thought about "short term" tracking like this. Thoughts? (I just joined, so I "inherited" this)

'2 hours lunch break and 1hr for prayer breaks' and the work is low quality. You don't need to track those people, you need to replace them.

Found the American.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#69

Post by pietrovismara »

AceyMan wrote: post #47
pietrovismara wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't treat reasonably your tools. That's how some companies see their employees.

You believe this?—ask any tradesman, mechanic or PE—"Take care of your tools and they will take care of you" is gospel in those fields. The same, then, should apply to "living tools" if your analogy obtains.

You may care about an expensive tool as long as it works, but you'll throw it away as soon as it breaks. A tool has no rights, and you'll never care about it enjoying working for you. Yes, the analogy still work for me.

Re: Barclays scraps 'Big Brother' staff tracking system within one week

#70

Post by jgalt212 »

riazrizvi wrote: post #46
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #8

So, they basically treated people like low-level employees at a call center in the US? This sort of thing isn't actually new. Those cameras in retail stores are, first and foremost, used to track employee theft - including theft of company time spent talking to other employees. Are you a call center employee that has to go poop often that day or are 3 minutes late from break? Expect a call from HR for the bathroom br…

It does happen in the US, and in banks, and not just low-level employees. Palantir sells the service. It has been used by JP Morgan for a few years: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel In LOTR the Palantir is used by Sauron to corrupt and subdue Saruman by displaying visions of terror. Coincidentally a Palantir employee in collaboration with Cambridge Analytica were instrumental in the Republ…

Yes, but IIRC, the project was cancelled or greatly scaled back after Senior Management discovered that Palantir was also reading their emails and just not the drones in Sector 7G.
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