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from the if-they-track-your-every-move,-it's-best-to-hold-still dept.
How can an employer make sure its remote workers aren’t slacking off on the job? In the case of talent management company Crossover, the answer is to take photos of them every 10 minutes through their webcam.
The pictures are taken by Crossover’s productivity tool, WorkSmart, and combined with screenshots of their workstations along with other data including app use and keystrokes to come up with a “focus score” and an “intensity score” that can be used to assess the value of freelancers.
Today’s workplace surveillance software is a digital panopticon that began with email and phone monitoring but now includes keeping track of web-browsing patterns, text messages, screenshots, keystrokes, social media posts, private messaging apps like WhatsApp and even face-to-face interactions with co-workers.
Good luck with that, Big Brother. My webcam's covered by duct tape.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:39AM (5 children)
Hello, this is your employer. Sorry, we don't need you any more. And no, it of course has totally nothing to do with the fact that your web cam doesn't appear to be working …
(Score: 1) by petecox on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:50AM (2 children)
Can't you just try the trick from Speed, where Dennis Hopper is fooled for a time by looping the same video tape?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nerdfest on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:54AM
That'd be fine, but how many of us actually work for Dennis Hopper?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:19PM
Undoubtedly this is the route slackers will take. Record some typical actions, then have a program repeat them in pseudo random order. Better yet, let's move away from this death by bean counters.
Bean counting is important, but only up to a point. After that the bean counting produces negative returns that are difficult to quantify for bean counting brains.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jimtheowl on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:47PM
Also, some employers care mostly about the fact that the job gets done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:20AM
There's two easy solutions to the employer demands you appear on webcam issue.
1. Pull a Dilbert: create a finger puppet of yourself in an itty bitty business suit & hold it up in front of the camera while you stay out of frame. If you make it so the resolution of the video stream is so bad/choppy/crappy that you appear as nothing more than some fuzzy pixels, then nobody will be able to tell it's not the real you.
Or
2. Sit in front of the camera completely naked & covered in aerosol squeazy cheese. If they try to complain, tell them it's part of your religious observances to prevent the camera stealing your soul. If they fire you for that then you can claim religious persecution & the labor lawyers will go absolutely apoplectic when you ask if any of them wants to earn a fat cheque to represent you in court for said employer having given you the shaft.
Or, and this one's the most fun...
Connect your webcam to a different computer set up to send a live feed of the dog licking itself in a most humourous & NSFW fashion. When the boss complains claim everything looks fine on your end. Let them go insane trying to figure out why your video feed isn't what it's supposed to be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a few more cans of squeazy cheese to apply. =-D