Posted on 01/28/2022 11:52:44 AM PST by ShadowAce
The Omicron surge has forced businesses to again delay a date for a return to the office. And that means a delay to an inevitable showdown: between workers and managers over remote or office-based work.
To a degree, every business will have by now adapted to the reality of a hybrid workplace and the fact some staff will remain home-based while others will come back to the office.
Any business that cannot offer a hybrid workplace will face problems in recruitment during this worker shortage. And problems in developing in-house, the skills of managing a modern workforce.
For work at home advocates the future looks rosy. With the current jobs boom it looks certain that they'll get what they want – either at their current employer — or somewhere else.
But will workers agree to allow their employer to monitor their home office activities? Is it something that can be refused or not? How is the home different from the office where people can be seen to be working at their desks, engaged in meetings, and logging into their IT systems?
Do remote workers have a right to refuse to be monitored?
Digital.com released a survey late last year that found widespread use of remote worker monitoring software especially in IT (77%) and advertising (83%).
One in seven workers hadn't been told about it.
Working from home might not be such a wonderful thing when you consider that people worked harder – a 10% boost in productivity was reported in the survey after the software was installed.
Being away from the office can be very isolating and cause anxiety by being out of the informal communication loops.
Further anxiety comes from the jobs that aren't hourly paid – how many hours is enough to prove your worth? You'll be competing against the unknown productivity of your colleagues.
You'll feel pressured to go the extra distance especially since 88% of employers said they had fired people based on their remote work reports.
Work from home might even become the norm for some organizations because if done right, they get a lot more productivity – and also they can confidently outsource some of their operations for big savings.
The home could easily become a dismal backwater for remote workers, always-on and always watching. I'd rather leave all that at the office, imho.
“If the work is getting done, why monitor?”
Indeed - if a business is measuring activity rather than outcomes, it’s incentivizing the wrong things.
This one won't. Then again, I'm my own S-Corp for that as well as other reasons.
I told the CEO of my current contract back in 2009, no vidcams, no screen scrapers, no keystoke monitors, no IP monitoring, nada, or I quit. I meant it then and I mean it now.
If I were to leave at this time, with my 13 years of amassed knowledge of both tools and product domain, it would be very damaging to my client's operations. Not that would stop some of these 'brightest and the best' running some companies. But for me, that's a Rubicon for them to cross.
Just say no. If you need my expertise, I’ll provide it. No cameras (except if and when I consent) and no keystrike monitors. You’ll have my output when it’s ready.
If you have a company owned laptop tape over the Camera. They can monit or every keystroke, screen and app you run. wrote an app to keep my activity details and added a no sleep feature.
That’s hardly enough anymore .
Right...
Trade secrets for one.
Yep. Jobs will go to India. Why put up with this crap from an American worker? Now he won’t even report to the office anymore? Adios. Your job is now outsourced to Mumbai.
Trade secrets aren’t protected by monitoring employee busyness.
“Your job is now outsourced to Mumbai.”
In my experience and that of other FReepers, most Mumbaians don’t know their *** from a hole in the ground.
About 2010 or 11, the counseling industry started doing “productivity monitoring.” They charted the number of words and lengths of chart entries. People did so much of this crap, they didn’t spend time with their clients. It was all about pleasing bureaucrats and insurance companies. I always stayed a step ahead of working at one of those.
“They charted the number of words and lengths of chart entries.”
Measuring outputs is great - but you have to measure the right things. A previous employer wanted to measure technical writer output - and first thought of word counts. I emphatically explained to my manager that this was a guaranteed recipe for bloated, unusable documentation. The idea was eventually nixed.
“If the work is getting done, why monitor?”
Because too many managers and supervisors are sadistic pricks who get their jollies by torturing the people who answer to them.
It’s people like this who keep legions of lawyers busy with harassment and hostile workplace lawsuits.
Main reason are most of them are bored and have nothing else to do. They have to justify their position somehow.
“If they don’t tolerate being monitored they will have to tolerate being replaced.”
Some people are not easily replaced. Especially these days when there’s competition for employees who can read, write, compute, and pass a drug test.
“and pass a drug test.”
I was never drug tested for any of my regular positions in the tech sector.
“I was never drug tested for any of my regular positions in the tech sector.”
If what you do requires a security clearance and requisite background check then you’d be drug tested.
No.
“Will remote tech workers tolerate being monitored?”
Only the ones wearing masks.
And there aren’t many of those, right? Right?
#3 At my last job in a Help Desk they were hiring people in India to take over after someone left here in the USA. After 1 year that group in India were replaced by people in Poland...
The new management for 3 levels high are from India living here in the USA. We became expendable to them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.