Re:The Rise of Workplace Surveillance
by albertgoeswoof on Monday November 06, 2017 @11:50AM
(#15636741)
> If it seems like someone is stealing documents, but you then discover they actually aren't, then no harm done.
If my company accused me of that I think I'd run a mile, so there's some harm.
There would be rampant abuse with this kind tool in place, as it give cause to fire anyone at any time, it would not be hard to find a reason to fire someone with this level of surveillance
Re:The Rise of Workplace Surveillance
by matte_black on Monday November 06, 2017 @12:49PM
(#15637198)
You don’t have to accuse someone to investigate their activity. Hell, the person doesn’t even need to know they were investigated.
If a company really wants to fire you they will find a way with or without surveillance.
Re:The Rise of Workplace Surveillance
by nickthemagicman on Monday November 06, 2017 @10:53AM
(#15636289)
A huge part of me hates the Big Brother aspect but then there's another part of me that thinks that if used properly having data is never really a bad thing and could possibly be used to make the company more efficient run better and address concerns of employees. Human nature really makes it difficult to trust that the data will be used positively though
If it seems like someone is stealing documents, but you then discover they actually aren't, then no harm done.
If someone actually was stealing documents however, and you don't have the surveillance to realize this, your best salesman might have just took off with a bunch of client information to go work at a competitor. You might never find out, and if you did, you might have no way to prove it.
Workplace surveillance doesn't really have downsides, other than "workplace culture might be affected". However your culture can still be shitty even without surveillance, and just because you don't monitor employees doesn't mean they will become shining examples of company loyalty.
There's plenty of upsides though. Having data on what employees do, and when, and for how long, provides opportunities to discover where improvements can be made, as long as you collect the right data and use it for the right purposes.