Workplace surveillance is coming for you • Hacker News Board

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#71

Post by thfuran » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

nopehnnope wrote: post #59

jacquesm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is complete nonsense. The easiest way to fire shitty employees is to fire them for being shitty, which you should have documented to begin with. This has absolutely nothing to do with anti discrimination law.

That “complete nonsense” is what US employment lawyers would advise you. But hey, some French guy on the internet knows more.

Attempting to circumvent anti discrimination laws by documenting and firing over technical violations only for the class you aren't allowed to discriminate against doesn't improve the legal situation vs simply discriminating more straightforwardly and firing without cause. Firing for cause rather than without can avoid severance payout though.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#72

Post by IMTDb » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

helloworld97 wrote: post #51

nopehnnope wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

That's some pretzel logic there. They can't arbitrarily implement/enforce rules without first disclosing them, and it looks bad in a court of peers if they start doing this haphazardly. I would actually say it's easier for them to get away with this in an at-will environment without these rules. "Position was eliminated" works pretty well (in the US).

> "Position was eliminated" works pretty well.

Unless you also happen to be recruiting for that same position, or if your local legislation asks that you prioritise relocating your current employees in other jobs over firing them if their position disappears.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#73

Post by fareesh » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

I would just use another computer and automate some BS on the surveilled one.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#74

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:50 PM UTC

nopehnnope wrote: post #49

avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

[deleted]

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#75

Post by chaostheory » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

Surprised that no one mentioned this yet in the top comments, but isn’t Microsoft one of the top purveyors of workplace surveillance since MS Office is so dominant?

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252521757/Microsoft-Offi...

I know telemetry services eat up a lot of resources in my work laptop from time to time.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#76

Post by doubled112 » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #45

rightbyte wrote: post #27

I like the term "bossware". I think I will use it the next time I wiggle the mouse to make my Teams status green again.

One thing I appreciate about slack is my ability to turn off the "auto-afk" check.

For now.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#77

Post by mtberatwork » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

nopehnnope wrote: post #49

avg_dev wrote: post #23

Damn, I had some fairly old opinion of Doctorow where I disliked him for some reason or other, but I am definitely revising that. I thought this was a great article. I am certain “bossware” will accelerate the downfall of already shitty workplaces. Very happy to hear Amazon is doing away with it. Strongly hope their workers unionize anyway. What kind of employer nickle-and-dimes a worker’s bathroom breaks? Not a good…

This is the unintended consequence of anti discrimination laws (and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment). Easiest way to fire shitty employees is to document a bunch of technical rule violations. That will create a rock solid paper trail that will stand up in court. Otherwise, they will claim some kind of discrimination and it’s your word about their performance against theirs cal…

> and other laws, like those protecting unions, that defeat at-will employment

This is backwards. Union membership is at its all time low and at-will employment has mostly taken over. A union would be the best tool to curb "boss-ware".

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#78

Post by antman » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

Not that easy in EU:

"instead of monitoring individual usage, employers can monitor aggregate levels of usage and send general reminders to staff. If excessive private use persists, monitoring can be increased in line with the defined rules of the organisation, for example to specifically target particular suspicions" those rules should also be made public to the employees

Additionally staff should be made aware and formally comment on any subjective interpretation of data for their evaluation.

Also if using ML the also should be published and be explainable ML

Also EY says monitoring only for "legitimate reasons" which is a legal murky area.

https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/refer...

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#79

Post by wussboy » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #52

I'm currently reading "The Tyranny of Metrics" which provides a decent analysis of how over-measuring things that don't have anything to do with the real goal often serves as a deterrent to real progress. What managers want to know is how much do their workers contribute to the success of the company . What they measure is how much time do workers spend doing X . They're completely glossing over the middle step of ho…

I think this was covered in "Thinking Fast and Slow", but when our brains encounter a hard problem, we often substitute the answer for an easy question. I think this process is at play in the dynamics you list above.

"How does the time spent doing X contribute to the success of the company?" is a hard question. It has incredible value and every company should spend a great deal of time considering it.

"How much time do workers spend doing X?" is an easy question, and so we have used its answer as the answer to the hard question.

Re: Workplace surveillance is coming for you

#80

Post by wussboy » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

oezi wrote: post #68

giraffe_lady wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe in many states it's illegal for you to be recorded at work. That doesn't seem right where are you getting that? A workplace is probably not considered "public" so a third party might be restricted on recording you there. But your employer isn't a third party here so you're straight back into og labor relations and what does your contract say and what does your union allow etc.

In Germany the entire premise of monitoring performance is prohibited. Employers aren't even allowed to look at email.

Curious how this affects contact centres? They monitor everything agents do down to the millisecond. And "All calls are recorded for training and quality purposes."