The rise of workplace surveillance [audio]
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
If you feel like you need these monitoring tools as a leader or manager perhaps take a long hard look in the mirror in regards to your own management abilities. I know what employees are doing their job and doing it well by the timeliness and quality of their deliverables and the amount of imitative they are taking. If an employee is not meeting expectations have a conversation with that employee and figure out why. The only thing monitoring software does is make everyone feel disrespected.
To be clear, a small moonlighting gig that's in keeping with business rules is fine. A second full-time job is almost certainly not.
[1] unless your employment agreement also specifices some sort of exclusivity.
What "free market principles"? The wikipedia article for "free market" says:
>In economics, a free market is an idealized system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.
In this case, two parties (employers and employees) are voluntarily entering into a contract without government coercion. I fail to see how that's against "free market principles".
And who uses "free market" to mean the definition you just proposed?
>For example, if the owners of all the food production refused (on their own accord) to sell to certain groups because of their ethnicity, that wouldn't be a free market.
1. While I agree the example you gave is undesirable, the unclear whether the badness stems from "buyers can only buy from certain sellers" or something else. An easy test of this would be: if I refuse to buy widgets from Acme Co. because they also make cluster munitions, does that mean I'm violating free market principles?
2. how does exclusivity agreements play into this? Are they all against your definition of "free market"?
>So 'voluntarily ' here has the same meaning as voluntarily giving your wallet to mugger pointing a gun at you. In this analogy the gun is potential homelessness and starvation.
This is a terrible analogy because homelessness and starvation is the natural state of things, but the same can't be said of a bullet traveling towards your head at 300 m/s.
'Natural state of things' would only apply in the absence of all society and civilization, but since there are land owners and employers, its not a natural state but a man-made one, just like a gun. A bullet and homeless/starvation can be both deadly and/or cause severe bodily harm, just at different rates.
Where I am in Canada, I've had exclusivity required for an employment contract but only within the employer's niche and for pay well above industry norms.
The problem over here comes when the work is structured as a contractor/client arrangement.
If someone is set up as contractor, even with a registered company, they can be considered a de facto employee and have all the protections given to regular employees. Additionally the client, as the de facto employer can get in trouble for not making and remitting payroll deductions.
Even incorporating won't save you. There are several criteria but, if you're the sole employee of a corporation, you're considered a personal services business. It makes you ineligible for any corporate tax reductions, an additional 5% tax, and virtually no deductions are allowed outside of payroll expenses; even supplies and directors' action payments.
If I am laid off (company doesn't give a shit about me), will you give me part of your salary? No right? So why the f should I care if my actions (assuming they are legal) affect you? 2 salaries? Yay, I will get to retirement in half (or less even) time. Have a problem? Well change companies or do it the same. If your company punishes everyone for a couple individual actions, they don't know how to manage people or even who is working two jobs, just a suspicion. Change jobs, but let the people that can and prefer to work 2/3 jobs, finally had an opportunity to get ahead alone. It is your problem, not theirs
It's about integrity, something many people lack here in America today. And I very much doubt they are producing enough. They are likely working 10 hours a week per job. Being both an employee and a business owner that has employees, integrity is critical to any type business relationship. It may not seem like it, but trust me, it is paramount.
They're almost certainly not.
The popsci figure for how much a human can concentrate during a day is six hours. A standard 5-day 40-hour workweek already consumes that and more. I can virtually guarantee you that people working more than a single (knowledge work) job are significantly shortchanging one or both of their employers.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that position personally, just exposing it
Hours Worked at Computer > Productivity
Not everyone is going to take the same amount of time to do the same amount of work. Not everyone’s work is of the same nature. If an employee goes for a walk and is thinking through a work problem the whole time was that not an effective use of time?
I heard from a friend during the pandemic that they were having problems with a couple of employees and were considering this type of software. My response was why do you need the software, you know they are not getting the job done. Have a conversation with them and warn them about their performance and then if it doesn’t improve their future employment has to be considered. I don’t see why this is hard.
Perhaps not the wisest opinion, but so it goes.
- Open office plans, except the bosses get offices (there are exceptions, as with any of these other points, but that's the norm)
- Drug testing.
- Anti-moonlighting rules or other onerous contractural restrictions or claims on time off (these kinds of things apply to higher-ups more often than the other two, but it's still common for them to be universal for the "peons" while the C-suite is allowed to have their hands in several pies at once)
In general, being less-surveilled and less-restricted at work (and off work) is a perk of higher-status positions in a company. It's a social class thing, essentially. This tendency predates computerized surveillance.
1. Is this system calibrated down to the role and task at hand? Even just in tech, someone doing more design work is going to look different from the backend folks. Doubly so if one project is just starting while the other is midway.
2. How can we understand the potential bias already in this system? It's a black box by design, at what point is it reviewed and by whom?
3. Even if it's fine today, who is to say how it will be tuned tomorrow? Do you think new management would just leave it alone?
4. Do you think the people running this system are applying it to themselves equally?
IMO, this is a poor replacement for having a manager that's a human being and treats you like one too. I'm sad for people that can't find options away from these things, and can't vote with their bodies and leave.
I'm the opposite - I learn best by studying and tinkering (what with having 6 years of higher education steering me that way and all...). Nothing kills that off faster than having somebody looking over your shoulder saying, "why are you looking at the HTTP specification, somebody else already knows how that works".