Trust me, employee surveillance is a bad idea
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As an after-thought last week, I included this link to a story about the emergence of ‘Employee Productivity Tools’, or to call them by their more accurate name, Employee Surveillance Tools. I’ll be honest, I’ve been preoccupied with the subject ever since.
I’m naturally resistant to the idea of anyone tracking what I’m doing, which is probably why I was inclined to rail against the growth of behavioural targeting in digital advertising for so long, despite most people’s apparent disinterest!
I would also say that I’m a natural optimist, particularly when it comes to the intentions of people to put their best foot forward at work.
Aside from my personal feelings, all the evidence points towards autonomy acting as a significant contributor to people’s sense of fulfilment at work and, ultimately, their productivity and overall effectiveness.
So, why does any business think it’s a good idea to install software that snoops on their staff?
Are they too lazy to work with their employees to design their job in such a way that enables measurement of their work, qualitatively and quantitatively?
Are they perverts who want to take stealth webcam photos of their unsuspecting team? Probably not and I'm starting to sound a little 'Elon Musk' so should move on.
Most likely, they just don't trust them to do their work if they’re not sat right in front of them in an office.
One thing is for sure, the explanation that these tools allow for a productivity score to be produced for every staff member, which helps improve the quality of their work is just bullsh*t dreamt up by the founders of these surveillance businesses to justify the insidious nature of their products.
As you can tell, this kind of thing stirs up strong emotions for me, particularly as it brought back memories of one of my first jobs. Fifteen years later, I still feel disgruntled about the lack of trust that was shown!
Here are three quick reasons why:
Being in my early 20’s and still adjusting to an 8:00 start time, there were a few 8:01 or, heaven forbid, 8:05 arrivals at the office. On each occasion, it was made clear that this type of insubordination would not be tolerated - I was called to my manager’s desk for an embarrassing dressing down in front of the rest of the floor. "Company policy", of course.
I was a smoker at the time and would pop out for a cigarette now and then throughout the day to interrupt the intermittent abuse I received from the clients I had the pleasure to serve. That was until my manager brought my habit up during my monthly 1-2-1, pulling out a full list of every time I’d left and reentered the building over the previous few weeks. That’s f*cking strange, I thought, why are you tracking my every move, you weirdo.
And yet, that still wasn’t enough for me to leave. No, that came after being posted to cover a European territory even after I’d requested I work on UK clients because of personal circumstances. I didn’t quit right away, you understand. Instead, I waited until 18 months had passed during which I excelled in my sales role and exceeded any targets that were set as part of the unwritten agreement to ‘do my time’ and then be given a London account. As you might have guessed, the deal wasn’t honoured.
Here’s the thing; the surveillance (as I considered it) was symptomatic of an overall lack of trust and empathy the company had for its employees, irrespective of their actions and, ultimately, their performance.
I’ve never been as pleased as the day I handed in my resignation; before being promptly escorted unceremoniously from the building by security, without any of my personal belongings.
There’s much talk about whether the absence of flexible working policy post-COVID will be a hindrance on a company’s ability to attract talent and this is undoubtedly true, despite the keenness of many (including me) to return to some office-based work. But I tell you what will be even more of a turn off for people; being asked to install surveillance software on their computers.
To be clear, it isn’t necessarily the tracking of the websites you use throughout the day or the access to your email or Slack messages that are the problem. I mean, this is a problem, but merely replicates measures that companies have had in place for twenty years for office-based workers.
It isn’t even the fact that several of these surveillance businesses boast about being able to access people’s webcams to take photos every 10 minutes to see if you’re ‘at your desk’. Although this raises some pretty serious questions about privacy.
No, the main problem, is what the lack of trust says about an organisation’s relationship with its staff.
Putting aside the fact that productivity isn’t the only measure of good work, this type of behaviour is morally wrong.
Plus, critically, there’s no guarantee that it has a positive effect. It’s demotivating and, in many cases, it creates more, low-value administrative work. One person told me this week that he’d spent his Sunday morning putting together a ‘granular productivity report’ that allocated some tasks in two-minute increments! You can imagine how long that took.
While I’m sure there are some short-term wins to be had in extracting every bit of juice possible out of people, let’s see how long they want to work in that environment. Has anyone heard of burnout? (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.)
The sad thing is that out of this most challenging and discombobulating of situations, there is an opportunity to create something great. To redesign work, to reconsider what productivity means and to rediscover the importance of empathy and collaboration between people.
So here are three quick ideas of what we can all encourage each other to do to help avoid these morons selling any more of their employee monitoring devices.
Set clear, consistent and regular goals for your team that can be reviewed daily to help alleviate any issues and highlight successes.
Create a psychologically safe environment in which people can openly share what they achieved during the day, whether significant creative breakthroughs, making 100 cold-call dials, or clearing their building email inbox.
Commit to flexible-working and, in the process, offer people autonomy and trust while providing them with the individual support that we all need for a near-future in which uncertainty will remain our overriding feeling.
Right, rant over; time for a breather! I’ll try to calm down a bit before next week and return to more positive and proactive matters.
Have a good one.
Ollie
Any Other Business:
Talking of psychological safety:
Safety at work goes beyond pandemic worries by Roger Steare in the FT. "During this period of physical fear, we also need to feel emotionally safe among colleagues.
With leadership in disarray, could two heads be better than one? By Graham Snowdon in The Guardian. "Joint leadership remains something of a rarity, but the pandemic has provided a moment to re-examine ways of working."
Redefining employee experience: How to create a "new normal" by Bhushan Sethi and Jean-Francois Marti in Strategy and Business. "As workplaces, customer behaviors, and economic conditions continue to change in response to COVID-19, companies should focus on three key actions."
And finally, Cognizant's report on the future of work, as reported here, is excellent and includes this fascinating visual showing 21 HR jobs of the future.
