Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Bossware

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,810

    Default Bossware

    ‘Bossware is coming for almost every worker’: the software you might not realize is watching you

    Computer monitoring software is helping companies spy on their employees to measure their productivity – often without their consent

    by Zoë Corbyn


    When the job of a young east coast-based analyst – we’ll call him James – went remote with the pandemic, he didn’t envisage any problems. The company, a large US retailer for which he has been a salaried employee for more than half a decade, provided him with a laptop, and his home became his new office. Part of a team dealing with supply chain issues, the job was a busy one, but never had he been reprimanded for not working hard enough.

    So it was a shock when his team was hauled in one day late last year to an online meeting to be told there was gaps in its work: specifically periods when people – including James himself, he was later informed – weren’t inputting information into the company’s database.

    As far as team members knew, no one had been watching them on the job. But as it became clear what had happened, James grew furious.

    Can a company really use computer monitoring tools – known as “bossware” to critics – to tell if you’re productive at work? Or if you’re about to run away to a competitor with proprietary knowledge? Or even, simply, if you’re happy?

    Many companies in the US and Europe now appear – controversially – to want to try, spurred on by the enormous shifts in working habits during the pandemic, in which countless office jobs moved home and seem set to either stay there or become hybrid. This is colliding with another trend among employers towards the quantification of work – whether physical or digital – in the hope of driving efficiency.

    “The rise of monitoring software is one of the untold stories of the Covid pandemic,” says Andrew Pakes, deputy general secretary of Prospect, a UK labor union.

    Think WFH means your boss isn’t watching you? Think again

    “This is coming for almost every type of worker,” says Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at Coworker, a US based non-profit to help workers organize. Knowledge-centric jobs that went remote during the pandemic are a particular area of growth.

    More at:
    https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...oring-pandemic

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    8,197

    Default

    I almost took a job for local company about 10 years ago that had a software that measured key strokes over time. If you weren’t inputting data fast enough, you would get written up.

    Very thankful I walked away from that one.

    It’s hard to find the delicate balance in employee efficiency. It’s obvious that you want your staff to be productive go-getters, but if all you do is push, people seem to crack and become less efficient or, worse, walk out the door.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." John 15:12

    "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Hebrews 12:14

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,817

    Default

    Wilneida Negrón


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    upstate
    Posts
    9,696

    Default

    I’m paid for my brain, not my fingers (key strokes.)

    I’ve told them on more than one occasion, if they want to see what I do, they can come ride with me. I will also be happy to forward my phone and email to them at anytime they feel like “auditing.”


    They always have the opportunity to kiss my ass.
    Last edited by Jozie & Me; 04-30-2022 at 08:15 PM.
    A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

    Theodore Roosevelt; 26th president of US (1858 - 1919)
    ____________________________________________

    “A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity” Sigmund Freud

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    FROG LEVEL
    Posts
    23,785

    Default

    Hope they catch me and I will fire myself---------------Again------------------------------------------------------------------------FJB
    Gettin old is for pussies! AND MY NEW TRUE people say like Capt. Tom >>>>>>>>>/
    "Wow, often imitated but never duplicated. No one can do it like the master. My hat is off to you DRDUCK!"

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •