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Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

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Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#51

Would you be okay with tracking software if it was installed on a work provided computer?

To be honest I would be uncomfortable using a work provided computer without at least some rudimentary tracking on it. Majority of my work provided machines were locked down to a limited user account, so it is up to IT to at least make sure that it is updated and not full of viruses.

I mean I don't want it to have a 1 minute timer that clocks me out, but the expectation that work has complete ownership of their provided equipment has been the norm for at least the 10 years I have been working.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#52
post #39

"If you're idle for a few minutes, if you go to the bathroom or whatever, a pop-up will come up and it'll say, 'You have 60 seconds to start working again or we're going to pause your time,' " the woman said. Solution to that using appliances available in every home: Dangle the mouse from you desk and put a fan next to it so that it hits the mouse from time to time. But also quit your job - managers who use such tact…

Or get a USB mouse jiggler! https://www.amazon.ca/Cru-Dataport-Wiebetech-30200-0100-0011...

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#53
post #37
post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was refle…

Had the same experience in the midwest early in my career. Underpaid, overworked, our boss expected us to work weekends without any extra pay because we "all needed to pitch in". Corporate culture in the midwest is horrifically outdated.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#54
Question: Is it legal for a company to provide you with a laptop that you use at home and then monitor video/audio from it? What happens if I am using it in a space with my family present? Is it legal for my employer to spy on them? What if my two year old runs naked through the room? Can they monitor during "non-working hours?" What if I have to be on 5am video conferences and am answering emails at 12am?

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#55

I think this is a situation where employees need to leave the company. We vote with our choices. If we don't deem this to be appropriate, we must respond in kind. It's not simple and not everyone has the choice, but for those that can, should.

While this is certainly one method, it is not the only one. Change from within is possible and requires organizing with your colleagues. Otherwise we become like locusts, forever driven from place to place in search of ever-shrinking fertile land.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#56
post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

> poor management. Uneducated decision making

There is no "poor management".

What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work?

There's always a boss.

The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see.

Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there?

You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone.

> in highly secured environments or when dealing with highly sensitive documents

Its about control.

No matter how highly secured an environment is, human ingenuity can and will still work around it. There's literally several professions dedicated to it.

NO matter how highly sensitive a document is, if someone decides to share it, they will.

Crocodiles, fire pits, stripdowns, armed guards, MRIs or any camera is no obstacle to a determined individual.

> If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees.

Nah - it's just about control.

Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ

Did "Jim" not know that he was on facebook for 8 hours yesterday?

Will bringing that to his attention suddenly make him "more productive"?

Why would it have that effect?

You could try and fake empathy for the hand that feeds you (you have reason to!) but even if this kind of management had absolute clarity into employees workload, they still would do surveillance.

Why?

... because their messaging is "we control you during the hours you work for us".

It's unlikely anyone's watching the surveillance data and footage. Honestly, people don't have time and it's a very high noise-to-signal ratio activity. Even at retail where loss prevention is at least one dedicated department, it's impossible to follow up on surveillance data and footage.

Do you honestly believe anyone would look a those verbose reports generated in the video at any detail?

No.

For all purposes, its not the how but the why.

Control.

All this talk about productivity, workload and trust are "feel good" concepts that give the illusion that there just some "miscommunication" happening.

If only that "miscommunication" went away, everything would be perfect with the world again.

It provides a distraction from the reality that the people one's working for are sycophants and extremely manipulative.

The truth is - action has no miscommunication - it either works or it does not.

The toilet needed to be scrubbed?

Its either done or not done. Couldn't be done because someone was having a seizure there that required a team to come in and block the cleaning from happening? Check.

If the cleaner had to badge in and out and had a camera mounted at the restroom entrance to check if they went in or out - does not have any relation to the job getting done.

IF the individual cleaner was so determined to clean the restroom during the seizure, they would manage to do it.

Russia, China and the companies that hire the likes of InterGuard Employee Monitoring for surveillance is doing it for control.

Putin wants dirt on you so when you become a problem for him, he can use it against you.

Surveillance is all about control.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#58
I think a lot of this comes back to laziness and/or lack of critical thought toward measuring efficiency of completing work. It’s perfectly normal to want to determine who is most efficient and who is not. Those who are working harder than others should be rewarded and the inverse for those that need to improve. I think the big question is how do you measure output? The wrong way is measuring how often your mouse is moving or tracking how much time you spend on Facebook. Ultimately management should have some way of measuring job efficiency, in a way that is difficult to influence in any other way. Surveillance software is going to give you terrible metrics probably unrelated to output (amongst tons of other bad side effects)

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#59
I think it's time to start naming and shaming these companies. This doesn't increase productivity. It's disgusting. You don't own people's lives for 8 hours a day; you pay them to help you achieve goals for the company.

It baffles me how the US has trouble not understanding that paying for someone's time does not make them your slave.

Re: Work-from-home boom leads to more surveillance

#60
post #37
post #12

It’s old-fashion management. If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees. Simple as that. I don’t see how this makes any employee productive. This adds more stress imo. An employee gives you 8 of their 12 hour day. Now, you tell me if that works only for you - the management. They’re people just like you. They have a life just like you. They have r…

Once upon a time, I worked for a company in Kansas City where upper management genuinely had trouble with the idea that engineers were humans with lives outside the office. I was walking through their section of the office one day, and overheard the President of the company asking in tones of complete bewilderment why engineers were not voluntarily working twelve-hour days. Suffice to say that his confusion was refle…

There was a time when that sort of made sense. When companies didn't lay people off during hard times, carried pensions that were risky for the company, etc. It seems like some didn't understand that loyalty goes both ways...pull one side and the other goes with it.
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