back to article WFH with privacy? 85% of Brit bosses snoop on staff

More than three-quarters of UK employers admit to using some form of surveillance tech to spy on their remote workers' productivity. Eighty-five percent of the 1,000 workplaces surveyed said they were using monitoring tools to some extent. Wells Fargo sign in Florida Wells Fargo fires employees accused of faking keyboard …

  1. Caver_Dave Silver badge

    Health officials say to walk around a little and often. Opticians say to look out of the window at least every 20 minutes. Concentration is better if you take a 5 minutes break every hour.

    We are being told all these things to help our health and productivity and yet management want us nose to the grindstone every minute of the day.

    We have just been moved over to Teams from Zoom as it has a better ability to report inactivity.

    I could be designing on a piece of paper, making a cup of Tea or many other 'normal' work activities, and Teams reckons I am away from the desk and not working. This is stress I don't need.

    (My manager is a reasonable guy and I trust he will resist upper management using 'attendance' at review time - I say trust as he is off on long term illness at the moment!)

    The trust in workers is being diminished and I feel that it is the finance departments pushing it.

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Pirate

      Sounds like a good time to build/buy a mouse agitator that could keep you 'busy' while not at the computer.

      And introduce management to the concept of Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

      1. Azamino
        Windows

        Jiggler

        Putting my optical mouse on top of an analogue clock laid flat on the desk was always sufficient to keep my PC awake back in the day, the moving seconds hand providing all the movement necessary.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: Jiggler

          Putting my optical mouse on top of an analogue clock laid flat on the desk..

          Thus proving that time and tide present no obstacle for someone who'd rather be fishing than stuck on yet another zoom call. My solution was just to put the mouse in a winding box, which is a handy gadget for keeping automatic mechanical watches wound.

          Problem with these workforce management 'solutions' is they're often more suited to monitor employees that figure out how to look busy, rather than actually are busy. So doing design stuff and problem solving, much of my work was often not on a computer. So lots of documentation to read & digest prior to hitting the keyboard. Often easier to do away from the desk with a coffee and a highlighter so there were fewer distractions like (non)Urgent!!! emails or IMs nagging me. Or grabbing some cow-orkers for a whiteboard session so we could try to figure out just how TF we could deliver what sales just sold. Or just walking away from the desk to break the brain-lock trying to solve the same.

          Which is why I'm glad I don't have to work for those types of businesses any more. My staff can work where they want, how they want, when they want, providing the work gets done. If businesses can't figure out how to measure that effectively, then they have problems that no amount of workforce surveillance will ever solve. Probably won't solve things like executives and minions attending an important off-site meeting in a hotel/motel somewhere either because they'll just exempt themselves from surveillance.

          1. Jedit Silver badge
            Thumb Up

            "time and tide present no obstacle"

            Time was more of a help than a hindrance, really.

          2. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

            Re: Jiggler

            "providing the work gets done".

            And that, is the only metric that needs to be tracked when talking about salaried employees!

            It's like the conversation I've had with many managers.

            Manager: "Can you tell me what {insert employee name} is doing on the internet all day?"

            Me: "I could, with HR's approval, but why do you need that?

            Manager: "Because I think they are screwing off all day!"

            Me: "Well, you already know you have a problem then!"

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Jiggler

          I had a windows macro keyboard and mouse recording program. It would happily copy a file from the network and delete it every 30-60 seconds. That way not only was my machine awake but it also had lots of network traffic.

          I wasn't being lazy. I had databases with millions of records churning away but that still didn't stop my machine from locking up and there was no way I was going to sit and stare at a screen for half an hour plus at a time doing nothing. I even got it to email me a notification when it was finished.

        3. StewartWhite Bronze badge

          Re: Jiggler

          Put your optical mouse on a mirror and the folks monitoring you will no doubt think you're incredibly "efficient" because of the continual unpredictable movement. If you also want to get the buttons pressed every so often, spread some liver pate on them and buy a labrador.

      2. Gordon861

        I made up a few using a Pi Pico board during Covid for colleagues, they are still in use as far as I know.

      3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

        Wiggler

        I bought a $10 mini-USB dongle that constantly moved the cursor a pixel over and back. Simply because our work PCs (for "security reasons") locked themselves after 5 minutes idle. And that setting was locked down hard. Now, setting aside that (at work) our desks were behind a keycard door and a constantly (wo)manned reception desk, this was considered necessary. WFH started, and who's going to be shoulder-surfing or messing with my work PC? Sorry, one restriction for everyone, for "security reasons" -- "Zero Trust", dontcha know. Oh, and did I mention that said locking played havoc with overnight simulation runs?

        I got tired of having to log on again after I stepped away from the PC, or even if I took a phone call or a chat with a coworker. Bought the wiggler and problem sorted. Not that anyone ever called me on it, in spite of dire threats of immediate termination for security violations.

        Now, TBH, I never saw any kind of monitoring software installed on my work PC (I know what they used and how to spot it), but apparently it was used in certain other countries where it's allowed. Screen snapshots, and remote camera activation...the whole lot of capabilities. Had they tried using that on me, I would have raised a ruckus and likely left for another employer.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > I could be designing on a piece of paper, making a cup of Tea or many other 'normal' work activities, and Teams reckons I am away from the desk and not working. This is stress I don't need.

      Teams shows me as ‘not working’ when it isn’t the actively-focused window.

      1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

        Teams used to show me as both available and away from my desk even if I was sitting at the desk typing something into Teams... Took a 45 minutes phone call to our systems team to sort the problem..

    3. xyz123 Silver badge

      Teams is buggy and will report you as "busy" if you schedule anything in your Outlook calendar.

      Just schedule your start and end of shift as a single event in Outlook on Your Own Calendar. Hey presto! teams will show you as RED-STATUS busy all day!

      Are HR going to bitch that you aren't allowed to set yourself reminders for starting/ending work? get that in writing and then they can't complain if you're late / claim tons of overtime etc.

      They wouldn't legally have a leg to stand on as they'd have ORDERED you not to set reminders.

      1. XSV1
        Thumb Down

        Teams

        Let's face it... Teams is the biggest heap of shit of any of the MS products. It's by far the worst communication platform available.

        1. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: Teams

          Nah Nearme (the NHS choice for video conferencing ) is an utter heap of turd complete with god awful "hold" music (which finally you can turn off but which you have to do every single time) and for some (likely headcount protecting) reason a "concierge" (read random admin person) to "put you through" to the right dept, when the system could easily reference the appointments database (which I know they have) and put you through....

          3/4 of the time the video pixelates, staff find it's changed their mic settings, they can't hear me or I can't hear them, despite it working 2 minutes prior or the video drops out and tells them "buffering" - though I'm surprised they haven't killed it given how keen they are to drag everyone back into face to face appointments complete with germ laden waiting rooms full of randoms coughing their brains out as they 'didnt want to miss out on an appointment for a sniffle'

      2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Just schedule your start and end of shift as a single event in Outlook on Your Own Calendar. Hey presto! teams will show you as RED-STATUS busy all day!

        Are HR going to bitch that you aren't allowed to set yourself reminders for starting/ending work? get that in writing and then they can't complain if you're late / claim tons of overtime etc.

        Oh, I had that one, although it was usually project managers that would object. Especially when other people had Calendar access and would try to book me for back-back meetings, in which I'd be assigned actions, but could rarely get PMs to turn those actions into Tasks so that I had reminders. So I used to block out chunks for GSD, then have to explain to PMs that GSD stood for 'Get.. Stuff Done' so I'd actually have some complete all the actions/tasks that I had to do.

        Which was kind of worrying when PMs couldn't, or wouldn't grasp this simple concept. It never got as far as HR, but I did sometimes get to go to escalation meetings that could be at least entertaining. Especially as a 'senior manager', escalations tended to go straight to the top. So once the CTO telling the PM he was an f'ng idiot, and to stop wasting his, and my time.. And then contacting HR and putting the PM on notice, and they didn't last long after that.

        But like any tool, software ones can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Also another reason why I quit being a minion.

        1. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

          It is my opinion, that PMs in a business setting have a primary motivation to waste people time so they can justify their existence.

          1. Giles C Silver badge

            The purpose of a project manger is as follows.

            1. Assign me tasks to do and get time booked against said tasks so nobody else tries to get me to do more.

            2. Take any requests / needs from the rest of the business and sort them out.

            3. Keep management away and handle all reguests for updates.

            A good pm will get these done and leave me to get on the work.

            However when your boss and their boss are both in the project meetings that gets a bit harder. Luckily I get on well with both of them.

        2. Giles C Silver badge

          You put a line in the coatings for GBA. My grandad used to do that when he worked for Newalls Engineering in Peterborough.

          Just before he retires (1969] someone finally asked him what the line in the costs was for (I think it was about 10% of the machine costs usually)

          To be told it was

          General Buggering About

          Or the time that gets lost chasing deliveries, having meetings etc for some reason most of the jobs he costed made a profit

      3. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

        But that doesn't mean people cannot you, it doesn't mean your work can't be checked.

        A reminder, and an event in your calendar are 2 different things.

    4. el_oscuro
      Devil

      Monitoring with Teams?

      Teams and office are so broken that I can't see how Micros~1 could use them for monitoring. I routinely get logged out due to inactivity - right in the middle of actively using it. Except I am not *really* logged out - I just can't attend meetings. Which seems like a feature instead of a bug. And on more than one occasion, I have actually clicked on the "logout" icon, only to find the next day I am still logged in.

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Monitoring with Teams?

        My former employer went absolutely all-and-then-some in on metrics. MS has some lovely data analytics tools to massage all that monitoring data into numbers for management, goes under the name of "PowerBI", IIRC.

        I never found out too much about it, but I do know they were obsessive to a worrying level about KPIs and such derived from that BI data. Someone, someday, will discover it was all built on a foundation of sand, but I wasn't in a position to rock the boat.

    5. MJI Silver badge

      I am often in yellow as away as I am working something out.

      Even starting at lines of code, I am using the PC, it goes yellow.

      What a load of crap.

  2. cyberdemon Silver badge
    Devil

    Might I suggest

    That employers at least be required to declare these practices to job applicants at a very early application stage

    Job applicants who don't consent to it shouldn't have to fight a sunk cost fallacy i.e. "I wouldn't have applied for the job had I known this, but I can't risk turning it down now and waiting for an offer from someone else"

    That way, employers who use excessive surveillance can a) find the people they really want or b) be penalised by way having of zero good quality applicants

    1. Caver_Dave Silver badge

      Re: Might I suggest

      Employees need encouraging to report this on "Glassdoor" or similar sites.

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Idle hands - but whose?

    If managers have time to spend watching their staff it suggests that the company could afford to get rid of a few and tell the rest to get on with their work.

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

      Re: Idle hands - but whose?

      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      1. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?
        Holmes

        Re: Idle hands - but whose?

        <Vimes>

        I do

        </Vimes>

      2. Yankee Doodle Doofus Bronze badge

        Re: Idle hands - but whose?

        "Oh yeah, we'll keep him in here, obviously, but if he had to leave, and we were with him..."

    2. Stuart Castle Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Idle hands - but whose?

      It's not a case of watching their staff.. All they need is a spreadsheet listing users, and how many keystrokes/mouse movements they made. Or their "Productivity scores' if they were using teams during the period that was available. Even if you had hundreds of team members, it wouldn't take long to go through that.

      Of course, that doesn't take into account that some tasks take longer than others, and anyone whos job involves long tasks will show up as less productive using measures like the ones I've listed above..

      For instance, I was doing remote support during covid. I was basicaly 2nd line support, and it wasn't unheard of for me to spend a couple of hours on one task, where as the 1st liners were solving the simple problems (resetting passwords, restarting machines etc). So, of course they handled many times the amount of tickets my team did, and would show up as more productive on any sheet..

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Idle hands - but whose?

        Or their "Productivity scores' if they were using teams during the period that was available.

        I doubt manglers like that would work out that productivity had an inverse relationship with use of Teams.

  4. Mishak Silver badge

    "get away with a bit of Netflix"

    That's easy when WFM - just use another device!

    1. juice

      Re: "get away with a bit of Netflix"

      > That's easy when WFM - just use another device!

      Yeah. I have to admit, I was slightly baffled by this bit of the article:

      Simple examples include tracking the websites workers visit and the apps they use – more than a third engaged in this

      There's two things here.

      If you're using a company-provided device (e.g. a laptop), then it should really only be used for work and (certainly from a security perspective if nothing else) only have work-related applications on it. Especially during working hours.

      Equally, if you're using the company VPN to access the internet, then it's in the company's interests to make sure that you're not misusing it by chewing up bandwidth and/or visiting "questionable" content.

      The former can carry a financial cost, and can impact other employees - our VPN used to slow to a crawl when Apple released the latest Mac/iOS multi-gigabyte upgrades.

      And the latter can cause reputational issues, as well as creating yet another set of security risks.

      Frankly, I'd expect the same monitoring on both, as if I was working in an office. And if a company's not performing at least some due diligence on both points, then they're setting themselves up for a future issue!

      Admittedly, things have gotten a bit more blurred these days, as people often use their own devices, and/or use the public internet to access work-related resources. And again, those both carry significant security risks...

      1. Craig 2

        Re: "get away with a bit of Netflix"

        Didn't the child of an MP's use their government-issued iPad to watch football over a VERY expensive data connection abroad?

        1. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: "get away with a bit of Netflix"

          MSP

          and iirc they were forced to resign by the party even after apologising and repaying the cost (though that's because they didn't belong to the conservative party or the reform party

      2. UnknownUnknown

        Re: "get away with a bit of Netflix"

        Baffled …. TBH even in jest… this plays into the hands of anti-hybrid/WFH fuckwits like Jazzy, Zuckerberg, Cooke, Musk, Trump, Lord Stuart ‘not proper work’ Rose and ‘I visited your desk and you weren’t here’ Post-It JRM.

      3. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

        Re: "get away with a bit of Netflix"

        "as people often use their own devices, and/or use the public internet to access work-related resources. And again, those both carry significant security risks"

        Using the public internet for work stuff is fine so long as you do it from your work devices. Never, ever, ever use your personal device for work or vice versa. It night seem convenient in the moment but can always come back and bite you later.

  5. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Confusing activity with productivity again

    If you want to know whether somebody's pulling their weight, look at what they produce. And not just in terms of quantity, but quality too. Micromanaging time spent typing, or video snooping are signs of clueless management, so if this is going on get rid of the managers doing it for the best productivity gains.

    1. Guy de Loimbard Silver badge

      Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

      I'm lucky to have had a string of clients/bosses, call them what you like, who are interested in output/results and don't micro manage to get the output.

      Last boss I had said " keep/run/operate whatever hours suit you, all I'm interested in is the correct output, at the right level of quality I need " It's refreshing to hear, but alas, it is also a rarity in the workplace too often.

      I've also had bosses who track "productivity" based on the status of your collaboration tool, so Teams showing amber/away as an example. Which is a complete fallacy!

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Go

        Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

        +1 I could have written this^^^ but we use Slack, and I don't see any automagic changing of my status, whether I'm using it or not. I set my status as active and forget it.

      2. seven of five Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

        Force your status as amber/away, do a lot of work and see him die by a "division by zero error" end of month...

      3. Rahbut

        Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

        I tend to mark myself as offline (grey - as if the computer is off) and then make a point of messaging and responding to people and joining meetings... since setting your status to "Do not disturb" appears to mean "Please disturb me", and status will turn orange in a heartbeat even if you're on the computer, I think the Teams status indicator is invalid and treat it as such.

        I also used to enjoy clicking "Meet now" and doing a quick screen share, with just myself in the call...

        1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

          Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

          We have similar issues with an in-house IM/chatroom system that pulls data from outlook calendars to determine the free/busy icon. You can manually override it but the flaw is that it shows "busy" if there is anything in your calendar at that moment. So an all day entry like "in office" , "WFH", "Sarah, John and Felix on leave" or "forecasts due today" shows you up as "busy".

    2. Kevin Johnston

      Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

      Plus the savings from a Manager's salary/perks will be much higher than from a few drones. Additionally, the goodwill it would generate at the worker level will allow some company-biased adjustments to slide through without objection

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Confusing activity with productivity again

      As a 'team leader' type person my matra has always been 'dont micro manage'. Provided the team is getting through our tickets then frankly I don't care.

      We've all got a mouse wiggler installed due to dumb dumb dumb screen locking screensavers after a new-york second expires. Did I mention is was dumb?

      Basically production (tickets cleared or progressed) is a better metric than if Teams is monitoring.

  6. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    Trust

    The company's privacy advocate, Lauren Hendry Parsons, said: "These findings highlight an urgent need for greater transparency and trust in the workplace."

    Ms. Parsons is wrong about that last part. Workers need to distrust the motives of managers who deploy or use surveillance techniques and technology against employees!

    1. Felonmarmer
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Trust (you can always trust managers to do the wrong thing)

      The motives of the managers is to give themselves something to do. In the office they would stride around talking loudly and come up and interrupt your work to ask how you are doing, arrange meetings to discuss having meetings and have mandatory attendance daily meetings to find out why work was missing deadlines.

      Working from home has revealed, even to them, that they are really not needed. As they rarely do any billable work they are shitting themselves that they would be either forced to drop their management time down to the couple of hours a week needed to sign timesheets and approve leave and do some actual work, or leave. Luckily for them most of their senior managers are exactly the same except with meetings that focus on even more wooly thinking like strategy (not that they know the meaning of the word - number of times I've heard them talking about reacting to things proactively) and drawing lots of diagrams with big triangles on them with whatever concepts are fashionable that day at the apexes.

      So this monitoring gives them something to do. It would be better if they just spent all day at the golf course and be a drain, rather than actively damaging the workforce.

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

        Re: Trust (you can always trust managers to do the wrong thing)

        Re: managers not needed

        I always thought the transition from university to professional career was interesting from a management perspective.

        When in U, tasks were assigned, completed on your own schedule, but delivered on time (or else!). This continued for four, or however many, years. Next comes a work career, and all of a sudden, you can't be trusted to manage your time, you need to be present at this time, may not leave before this time, may only take 1/2 hour for lunch (MUST you???), etc.

        COVID and the WFH it mandated proved that we (well almost all of us) are still perfectly capable of operating as we did at U, executing tasks, collaborating and delivering on schedule. We are not "resources" that need to be managed, we are experienced professionals who know what we are doing, will ask for help if we need it, and will deliver the agreed upon results on time. None of this should come as a surprise to management, but apparently, it does to some.

  7. Martin Gregorie

    My best workplaces...

    ...which were (in chronological order) an ICL service bureau, the BBC and Logica, all had a management bias against employee performance monitoring.

    Sure, if you couldn't handle the tasks you got assigned you would be let go, but this didn't involve any performance monitoring that I was aware of: just the usual annual review. However, Logica had an unusual management requirement: project and business managers and/or their deputies were always in the pub on Friday evenings to buy beer and listen to suggestions and gripes.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: My best workplaces...

      "Logica had an unusual management requirement: project and business managers and/or their deputies were always in the pub on Friday evenings to buy beer and listen to suggestions and gripes."

      Would that be for staff working on customer sites? A consultancy I worked for had that on a monthly basis, not so much for listening to anything, just getting everyone together.

      1. Martin Gregorie

        Re: My best workplaces...

        That was normal for system building in the office, which tended to be the norm for new projects. If we were working away from our usual office, the personal structure depended on how many were on-site for that project and whether there was a local office there. For instance, I once spent six months in HK, back in 1990 before the Chinese took over, documenting a client's systems/databases and reporting to a local project manager. We had several projects running there and so projects were managed much the same as London-based projects.

        Conversely, several of us were supporting financial networks in Abu Dhabi but were only out there as required, typically for just 3-4 weeks at a time and reporting to our usual managers in London - we only needed a single permanent guy in Abu Dhabi to act as our rep and contact man.

  8. Tron Silver badge

    Relax.

    If you were at work, everyone around you would soon gossip about you if they thought you were a lazy slacker.

    This tech is designed to catch those slacking from home. As long as you put in a respectable shift, you will be fine.

    If you are doing your job and meeting your commitments, but get hassled for going to the lavvy or answering the door, tell them where to stick their job and take your skills elsewhere. Their business can fail with desperate employees and those who have trained their cats to play with their [computer] mice.

    If you are working from home, whilst you are doing it, your home is no longer your private home but your workspace. So accept that your company has access to it. If you want to separate your home and work, you have to actually go to work.

    1. ChoHag Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Relax.

      > If you are working from home, whilst you are doing it, your home is no longer your private home but your workspace.

      Nope.

      > So accept that your company has access to it.

      Nope.

      > If you want to separate your home and work, you have to actually go to work.

      It's called a "VPN".

      Work can stay out of my home. If they don't like that my skills will be welcome elsewhere. If you can't say that get better skills.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: Relax.

        VPN up, Reminna up - Work

        My very fast internet connection, no remote connection, home

    2. mIVQU#~(p,

      Re: Relax.

      I reluctantly somewhat agree. Assume everything on your work laptop is monitored (and hope it's not). Web surf tracking has been going on for decades, the teams status metric is bullshit and the key stroke logging is scary (a lot of people, I've noticed in the workplace will sign on to their personal email, WhatsApp, Facebook etc so a company is potentially hacking these individuals).

      One simple rule: Work device is for work stuff only. Personal devices are for personal/private stuff only. Never install work related software onto a personal/private device and vice versa.

  9. djvrs

    Responsible adults

    I just hate Micro management. Luckily in my previous job, that manager was let go and was replaced by someone who was happy with 'you did what was asked of you' and were 'avaialble when called' the rest of it was within reason/flexible. Everyone worked hard, went above and beyond and the manager was highly respected for it. However, any p1ss takers were soon moved on. Happy days.....

    1. Spamfast
      FAIL

      Re: Responsible adults

      If you don't trust your employee, then why did you hire him in the first place?

      The corollary, of course, is that if your manager insists on surveillance then he doesn't trust you and for your own career & psychological benefit you should find another employer as soon as possible.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so management are not measuring output

    If management measured output/productivity, they wouldn't have to worry about whether staff were moving their mouse or whatever. It seems quite popular for management and politicians to complain about a drop in productivity, but quite often they don't know what staff really do nor how to measure it.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: so management are not measuring output

      They wouldn't recognise productivity if it bit them in the ankle due to a lack of personal experience of it.

      1. Spamfast

        Re: so management are not measuring output

        And there lies the rub.

        Productivity is, by definition, getting the product out in a profitable way, whether that be physical widgets or whatever. As long as that happens, management shouldn't care about how the ones generating the product are doing it provided that they are happy.

        Unfortunately, management defines its own productivity by how much it is seen to be interfering with the producers' activities.

        IT department heads suffer from the same insecurity.

        It's about justifying one's own existence.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A Simple Test

    I recall that when working from home, the LAN transmission seemed to synchronise with the noises i made. So i tapped the laptop when there was no activity, and every time the tap occurred, there was a packet sent (LAN data LED flashed) - this was 100% success rate.

    Could be coincidence, i suppose.....

  12. NewModelArmy

    What About Microsoft Recall ?

    Isn't Microsofts Recall the wet dream for the micro-managing managers ?

    A manager could see your every mouse move and text operation if the Microsoft Recall store was sent to a central store in the corporation ?

    No need to analyse logs, just view your work output as a video sequence when they feel like it.

    1. FirstTangoInParis Silver badge

      Re: What About Microsoft Recall ?

      If managers have the time to review Recall output, they really aren’t doing their job. I’ve had management who don’t understand the very meaning of vision and strategy, and just become meeting tourists.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What About Microsoft Recall ?

      Sounds like the sort of thing one might eventually want to create a dataset to create an ML job replacing agent for rote task based operatoons... It should certainly be enough to feed into an analysis tool to determine if one's activities are atypical or exhibit known banned behaviours, e.g. a mouse mover.

      ^FWIW I am with those who think it does not matter how you work, as long as work gets done.

  13. Decay

    Having run large teams I can tell you I never gave a flying you know what for time on the keyboard, "busy" or any of the other metrics being pushed. Did you get the work you were asked to do done by the deadline. Yes or No.

    I don't care if you did it 9 to 5 Mon Fri or spent Mon and Tue working 14 hour days and the rest of the week watching cat videos.

    If you can't get the work done in the time allocated, there are only a few reasons.

    You were given too much work or an unreasonable deadline. That's a conversation I have with your manager.

    Your work was much more complicated than first expected, scoping sucked or external factors such as 3rd party delays that were outside your control impacted. That's a conversation I have with your manager and or the PM or BA assigned

    You are not capable of doing the work. That's a conversation I have with you and your manager. Unreasonable ask? Lack of training? Incompetent?

    The vast majority of arguments I have heard for monitoring, must be in the office to be sure they are working, all boil down to managers who either don't know what their staff actually do or think that being busy is preferable to generating results. Or worse only measure success by how busy everyone is.

    Most of the time the knee jerk reaction to being asked "Are all your staff fully utilized" is let me come up with some metrics, stick it in a PPT and present it as evidence. Lazy or unthinking managers are more prevalent than lazy staff IMHO.

  14. Giles C Silver badge

    Well if they are tracking me

    This is my schedule

    Got to the office about 8:20

    Spent until 9:30 reviewing documentation

    Next two hours in a technical meeting working with consultants

    Then 30 minutes updating documentation

    Lunch

    But more documentation updating before another meeting with a separate supplier

    2 hours in that meeting during which my laptop was sat idle in front of me

    Another 20 minutes work on laptop

    Then a work conversation with others until I left at 5:45

    So for almost 3 hours my laptop sat idle during the day.

    Tomorrow - wfh

    9-930 meeting (so teams)

    1030-1130 meeting with consultants

    1230-1330 another meeting

    1600-1630 another meeting

    The difference if anyone was tracking me is that the meetings tomorrow will be teams / Webex so I will be using the laptop more

    Which day was I doing more work…..

    and as for slacking off when working from home - I would be lucky I occasionally grab a 5 minute break usually to feed the cat but otherwise I don’t have any spare time as I need to get stuff done.

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Well if they are tracking me

      Sounds about right. I used to enjoy the head down design/debug/test work. The endless meetings? Not so much.

    2. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Well if they are tracking me

      You forgot 'Reading and posting on the Reg'

      1. Giles C Silver badge

        Re: Well if they are tracking me

        If I have a few minutes I will do that on my personal phone - especially on Friday when the possibility of a new BOFH episode is there…

  15. xyz123 Silver badge

    The trick is to (outside of work) make a website that looks wildly inappropriate but isn't.

    Visit it multiple times then take it down. When HR files a complaint, just tell them "granny-gives-blowjobs.com" is a site about elderly people styling their friends hair! Act very very offended.

    Rinse+repeat with other employees until HR is sick and tired of wasting their time!

    1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

      Like penisland.net and many other variations using the name "penisland". At least one of them was a few years a bona fide website specialising in writing implements, especially expensive and exotic fountain pens. But now they all seem to be parodies of that, full of obvious double entendres.

  16. Winkypop Silver badge
    Happy

    I convinced my boss that reading El Reg was work

    To be fair, you do stay up with a lot of IT news and changes.

    1. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: I convinced my boss that reading El Reg was work

      And it is! I heard several times about security flaws first on El Reg, enabling me to be proactive on this.

  17. Jonathon Green
    Boffin

    Well, there’s a worrying statistic…

    ‘85 percent of business leaders have a "hard time knowing for sure that their people are being productive.”’

    Really?

    So 85% of business leaders don’t know what the core objectives of the organisations they claim to be the leaders of are or whether those objectives gives are being met??

    And the *workforce* are supposed to be the problem???

    If I were a shareholder in one of those businesses I’d be very worried about that statistic, and it wouldn’t be the workforce I’d be asking awkward questions about come AGM time…

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, there’s a worrying statistic…

      Then again, on the flip side, I reckon there is a higher percentage of people that have a hard time knowing for sure that their business leaders are being productive.

      For example, I have witnessed a director at his desk asleep during the day (on more than one occasion), and another that had a large TV in his office who used to sit there and watch cricket when it was on.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The European Convention on Human Rights and Data Protection Act 2018 both have a role in governing what can and can't be done by employers, but essentially surveillance is deemed fine as long as it's proportionate, transparent, and is carried out for a legitimate business purpose."

    It's definitely not deemed fine in Europe for performance monitoring purposes:

    https://www.autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/en/node/92/monitoring-employees/conditions-for-monitoring-employees

    "Legitimate interest

    You must have a legitimate interest in monitoring your staff. This interest must outweigh the rights and interests of your employees, such as their right to privacy. You must be able to substantiate this."

    "Necessity

    Monitoring your staff must be necessary. This means that you cannot achieve your goal in any other way that is less intrusive on your employees’ privacy."

    As mentioned elsewhere on the website, for performance monitoring you can set agreed work targets/quantities, so monitoring is not allowed for that purpose.

  19. Big_Boomer

    No real change

    Office based manglement were always obsessed with time-keeping and work hours, to the point that people used to constantly tell anyone who would listen just how many hours they had worked this week, presumably in the hope that they would be believed/promoted. More often than not, those bragging about their "hours" were the least productive. I used to take great pleasure in informing them that I managed to achieve way more than them whilst working only 40 hours per week, so perhaps they needed to improve their efficiency. It worked well as pretty soon all of them stopped mentioning their work time anywhere near me. :) We also all know/knew those who could "appear" busy in the office and it's no different in the WFH era.

    It's all down to competent management. The incompetents blame WFH, Hybrid working, and time-keeping (unless you NEED to be available for certain times). The competent managers look at work completed and value added to the product and to the company.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lack of employer awareness

    I suspect in many small businesses, employers are not really aware there is an ICO let alone a code on monitoring. they might put up signs about CCTV - because the installer told them

    Or that they need Fire Risk Assessments reviewed and updated (annually)

    Or that RIDDOR is a thing.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How to lie with statistics

    Love the way the statitistics are being manipulated in this sentence:

    "Seventy percent of bosses told the survey's authors that they believe monitoring actually improves trust, morale, and productivity."

    Can just imagine the survey ...

    "Is trust improved?" "No, in either direction."

    "Is morale improved?" "Definitely no."

    "Is productivity improved?" "Yes because staff are shitting themselves from being spied on."

    "K thanks we'll just put all those down as a yes."

  22. Paul 195
    Holmes

    Well...

    I'm not surprised firms monitor the websites you visit if you are using company equipment or a company network. In fact, they'd probably be negligent if they didn't as who knows what might end up cached on office equipment if they didn't.

    But none of the other types of monitoring mentioned is

    !) Reasonable

    2) Useful

    3) Proportionate

    And how much time is wasted looking at logs of employee activity trying to discern whether they are productive or not?

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