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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

#91

Post by jb775 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #63
Mangalor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could see unions making a big comeback in the US. They are still alive and well in the healthcare world (for nursing at least - my wife is a nurse at a large hospital in the US and has been a member of multiple nursing unions).

If you compare profit margins to wage increases there's an obvious (and expected via capitalism) disconnect. It's hard to galvanize this type of activity though. And new unions would definitely need a constitutional overhaul, probably based around transparency and making sure power and decision making is distributed.

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

#92

Post by jschwartzi »

sidlls wrote: post #26
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those cameras in retail stores are, first and foremost, used to track employee theft In my history, before finding my terminal career, I worked retail management. I worked for a chain that is no longer open, so I'm fairly certain I can say whatever I want about it now. I was fast-tracked for upper-level corporate management (I think it was the combination of not-giving-a-fuck based on depression and low-grade sociop…

What was the cost difference? Did the shrink reduction exceed the $3/hr raise in value but not by enough? Or was the raise not offset at all by the reduction?

I bet the bigger problem was that the raise went into operating costs, whereas investment in surveillance goes into capital costs. The corporation doesn't get to list any money it pays out to employees on its balance sheet, but that Orwellian surveillance system is capital and counts as an asset the corporation can leverage for a higher valuation.

It's all part of how Capitalism reduces humans to a drain on the system in favor of material.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

speedgoose wrote: post #77
fennecfoxen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can't fire these people" is also the standard in France. Also standard: a stagnant economy (~0.25% GDP growth on 0.18% population growth) and sky-high youth unemployment (20-25%).

You can definitely fire people in France. I don't know how you got the idea you can't. Also quality of life is perhaps more important than these numbers. People don't care about the GDP growth, don't want to have artifical employment with terrible and badly paid jobs (looking at you Germany), and prefer to eat good food for 2 hours.

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by wolco »

xamuel wrote: post #84
throwaway55554 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the cost difference? Doesn't matter. I bet it adversely affected someone's bonus and that was why it was scrapped.

What if instead of an extra $3/hr, the differential pay were an extra $10,000/hr? Obviously then the cost difference would matter. So, there must be a cutoff somewhere. Is the cutoff more than $3 or less than $3? We don't have enough information to know, nor do we have enough information to know whether upper management were just being comic book villains or whether their decision was based on crunching the numbers.

Might be the type of cost.

Outsourced = expense Salary increase = fixed cost can only write-off %.

It's probably the other managers who don't have the issue not wanting to increase their wages. Or explaining why the worst employees were paid more etc.

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

#96

Post by jb775 »

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)

Micromanaging will just piss people off, and cause them to look for work elsewhere. Challenge them and let your quality expectations be known.

If the work is slow and low quality, you should analyze the decision making processes behind how work is assigned. At my previous job (as a developer), tickets were assigned based on who was interested, rather than who would best complete it (i.e. the dev who recently built something similar). Also, I'd recommend figuring out a way for your developers to share codebase knowledge effectively. It's much more efficient to spend an hour pair-programming with someone than debugging an issue for 2 days.

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

#98

Post by wolco »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #66
crmrc114 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US often offers more protection compared to most countries.

Many countries copy the US so it's important they act as a leader.

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

#100

Post by redwall_hp »

ska wrote: post #33
thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "Want a raise? Start stealing!" is the greatest incentive structure...

Otoh "Want employee loyalty? Start treating them reasonably." probably is.

Company pays minimum wage. Employees give minimum effort. Company: shockedpikachu.jpg
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