It's 9am and I am busy at work, writing my next article.
Or am I?
This behavior has been coined as “productivity theater,”
a show that workers put on in the office.
But now, it's easier than ever, as working from home became a norm during the pandemic.
Enter creative solutions like mouse jigglers and other cheap
tricks to remain online and give the impression that one is actively working.
But employers are trying to stay ahead of the curve with the help of monitoring software,
or ‘bossware,’ to catch their staff that may be skiving or having that extended nap.
Humans, you know, don't sit with a page of Microsoft Word up and just the mouse
moving for three hours, they're typing, they're saving a document,
they're tapping into other applications, they're doing a search on the internet.
So it's just flagged as inactive time within Microsoft Word.
While employee monitoring software now has the capability to see everything on one’s
desktop in real-time, from keystrokes, browsing activity, emails, chat apps,
some have taken surveillance to the extreme.
In China, for example, some workers have called the state of work a “dystopian nightmare.”
These intrusive behaviors include installing cameras in toilets,
using AI that flags employees who are looking for a new job,
and emotion-recognition systems that can assess how 'happy' workers are in the office.
What are the implications if employee surveillance becomes the new norm?
Micromanagers have long existed in workplaces.
But as companies grapple with rising costs and shrinking budgets,
employers want to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth,
and sometimes that means squeezing value from employees as much as possible.
That has fueled what Microsoft calls ‘productivity paranoia,”
where bosses worry about whether their employees are working enough.
In fact, 85% of leaders have trouble believing their workers are being productive.
It is definitely not new. There's been surveillance since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, there were punch cards for people to come in and out of factories.
So there's always been a desire by employers to keep track of what employees are doing.
But that has increased excessively over the last few years, even pre-Covid.
Largely under the guise of ensuring workplace safety
and confidentiality and protecting the business.
Demand for employee monitoring software has skyrocketed since the pandemic.
VPN review website Top10VPN reported that searches for employee monitoring
software increased by 75% in March 2020 compared to the 2019 monthly average.
Demand remained strong in 2021 and 2022.
Another report found that close to 80% of employers use monitoring software
to track employee performance and online activity.
Some managers have taken it even further, storing recordings of staff calls,
emails or messages to evaluate their employees’ performance.
Veriato is one of many employee monitoring software companies
worldwide that has experienced a boom in sales due to the pandemic.
I installed Veriato on my computer for a day to find out exactly what managers
using a monitoring software would be able to see.
So yesterday, you were 1% productive. because we have not selected the productivity information.
Employers can determine which sites are productive or unproductive.
For example, sites like Twitter and YouTube would most likely be considered unproductive.
These are the sites you were working yesterday, throughout the day. Google.com, Google Chrome,
login window, Outlook — this is a bifurcation of the whole day.
Screen captures were done every 5 seconds and no surprise,
every conversation I had on Slack and Microsoft Teams was captured as well.
One of Veriato’s latest features utilizes ‘psycholinguistics’,
where employers could get an indication if workers are satisfied at work through their language.
There are by default, some keywords which we have already put, like President, interview.
Somewhere you have written 'interview' — that's why you got alerted.
Is it because employers want to know if their employees are leaving for the next job?
We always put it in a very positive way,
It's always good for the employer to know if their employee is looking for a job.
Maybe they're not happy with something, so they can have a candid discussion with them.
But these tools aren’t just for monitoring employees' productivity.
During the pandemic, employee identity theft and other fraudulent activities
were on the rise as more work from home initiatives were introduced.
That meant more gaps in security.
According to cybersecurity firm Check Point,
cyberattacks in Asia Pacific increased by 168% year-on-year in May 2021.
And in a separate report, IBM said that Asia is now the most targeted region for cyberattacks,
with Australia, Japan and India the hardest hit.
Monitoring tools can help increase a company’s
online security and reduce the risk of data breaches.
Now you have employees all over the place, and so part of that contract between the employee
and the business is: 'I'm going to take a corporate device to a personal location.'
I think a lot of employees understand if I can have this flexibility, it's okay
for the company to be understanding what's happening on my work device.
But not all employees feel the same way.
Research has shown that those who know they are being watched report feeling
more anxiety and pressure to work longer hours.
In fact, a study showed that employee monitoring has great potential in backfiring.
Monitored employees were substantially more likely to take unapproved breaks,
disregard instructions, and purposefully work at a slow pace.
Arjun is a software engineer who worked for a start-up remotely in Canada.
My manager would just bring up some statistics in our one-on-one meetings.
There'll be statistics like, "Oh, you're idle for, X amount of time."
But I finished early, and they're, "Oh, like, you should be working on something else."
Time Doctor, another employee monitoring software, was installed on his company laptop.
If I don't move anything on my computer, they know that.
And I hate that because most of the time when I work, I'll focus on a task for a little bit.
And then I'll maybe take a break, watch a YouTube video.
Employers can also compare the productivity scores
of workers, identifying the high performers, and those who are not.
I think it does kind of help me be a little bit more productive.
But at the same time, it's also counterintuitive, because what I would do is,
I would try to make my tasks longer to fill in a time.
In my head, I was like, why do it as fast as I can because no matter what,
they're still tracking me for a certain amount of time.
Jaya Dass is a HR expert and the managing director of Randstad Singapore and Malaysia.
She believes that employee surveillance could have negative impacts on organizations in the long run.
If surveillance intent is to control, to make sure that my employee is seated for X number of hours
at a desk, that they're not surfing social media, then the entire basis of remote working is lost.
That is a breach of trust. That is a breach of personal privacy.
That is observing the human being as a commodity.
You're not managing the emotional and the mental state of the employee,
which is actually the real essence behind productivity engagement.
As artificial intelligence and machine learning push the boundaries of employee monitoring, there
has also been more scrutiny over whether existing laws are enough to protect workers’ privacy.
In 2021, China introduced its first comprehensive law on rules around data
collection of personal information, modeling the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Other countries in Asia also have also introduced data privacy laws
or enhanced existing ones, such as Indonesia, Japan and Singapore
The thing about employee surveillance is that it
will often be something that's referenced in the middle of an employment contract.
It won't necessarily be expressly pointed out
with a big red finger saying, 'This is what we're doing.'
Usually, you'll see a provision that will explain that the employer has
the right to monitor or emails and phone calls.
And those purposes will be very broad.
When you're looking at your contract, you're not looking for those clauses.
You're looking for, how much am I going to get paid?
How much holiday do I get? What benefits do I have?
You will probably skip over all those sections to do with data privacy,
because they're not important to you at that point in time.
Veriato said that regardless of geographical location,
it would suggest clients to disclose the usage of its software to employees.
But employers can still choose to install its software in “stealth mode,"
making it much harder for workers to find out if they are being tracked.
So, if you are an employee concerned about your privacy,
is there anything that you can do other than not using work laptops for personal use?
The first thing they can do is if they're about to enter into a new contract,
they can read that contract thoroughly and find
the provisions in relation to data protection and employee monitoring.
If they become concerned later on, that their data has been used in a way that they are not
comfortable with, then all employees have the right to raise a complaint, a grievance.
There are various jurisdictions that have that right for employees to make a Data Access Request.
If none of that satisfies the employee,
then you have the right to go and complain to the data privacy commissioner of your jurisdiction.
And if you can’t stop employers from micromanaging you,
you may be able to beat them at their own game.
Arjun, for example, created a software called Lazy Work,
which claims it mimics human activity online.
It takes control of your keyboard and your mouse.
And it seems like a real human is interacting with the computer, but nothing is really being done.
But the time tracking software on their side, it shows you as being very productive.
Arjun says that his software, however, does not encourage workers to be lazy despite its name.
This tool could be used for bad.
But I think at the end of the day, if you don't do the work,
and even if you use this tool, the work isn't completed.
This is just to kind of like, give you that buffer time of,
"Oh, I want to take a break." Or "I feel like I've done enough for today."