Work at Home? Your Employer May Be Watching

[question everything]

WORK & FAMILY
By SUE SHELLENBARGER
July 20, 2008

Work at Home? Your Employer May Be Watching

(snip)

In a budding trend some employment experts say is invasive, companies are stepping up electronic monitoring and oversight of tens of thousands of home-based independent contractors. They're taking photos of workers' computer screens at random, counting keystrokes and mouse clicks and snapping photos of them at their computers. They're plying sophisticated technology to instantaneously detect anger, raised voices or children crying in the background on workers' home-office calls. Others are using Darwinian routing systems that keep calls coming so fast workers have no time to go to the bathroom.

Peter Weddle, an author, consultant and researcher on employment Web sites, calls the trend "21st Century Big Brotherism" that risks being "horribly intrusive." Skilled workers "don't need someone looking over their shoulders," he says. But while the monitoring can put a damper on home life, many people are so eager to avoid commuting hassles that they see the practice as an acceptable tradeoff. The technology so far affects mainly freelance information-technology workers, writers, graphic-design artists and call-center agents. But as telecommuting grows amid soaring fuel costs, more people will find themselves on an electronic leash. The monitoring itself may speed the growth, because it tears down one of the biggest obstacles to working at home -- employers' fear that remote workers will slack off.

Electronic monitoring is built right into freelance transactions at oDesk.com, which links 90,000 computer programmers, network administrators, graphic designers, writers and others with about 10,000 clients world-wide. The system takes random snapshots of workers' computer screens six times an hour, records keystrokes and mouse clicks and takes optional Web cam photos of freelancers at work. Clients can log into the system anytime and see whether contractors are working, what they're doing and how long it's taking them; clients' weekly bills are based largely on the data. A small computer-screen icon pops up at the bottom of workers' screens each time a screen shot is taken. ODesk Chief Executive Gary Swart says a client paying a freelancer likes knowing, "You can't play Blackjack. You can't watch YouTube. Why? Because I'm watching you work." When one oDesk client questioned an inflated bill from a freelancer, a check of the screen shots revealed he'd been watching a cricket game online. The freelancer reduced his bill.


(snip)

In another sector, call-center companies are tightening the electronic leash on home-based agents, who handle calls for retailing, travel and other clients. Call-routing technology at Arise.com, Miramar, Fla., helps keep its 8,000 home agents so tightly tethered to their phones that they have to schedule unpaid time off to go to the bathroom. Calls flow fastest to the most productive workers. Arise home agents, who are all independent business owners, have incentives to take a lot of calls; their base pay starts at about $8 an hour, but commissions are added for selling cruises, computers and the like. Top performers also get more flexibility, in the form of first dibs on work shifts.

(snip)

It's not unusual for call-center companies to record and spot-check agents' calls by listening in now and then. Working Solutions' new system goes beyond that to instantly detect and flag such trouble signals as cancellation threats or angry voices, enabling supervisors to jump in on the conversations right away, says Tim Houlne, chief executive of the Plano, Texas, company. Home agents' slipups, such as dogs barking or children crying in the background, are frowned upon. Like most call-center operators, Working Solutions says it has "zero tolerance" for background noise.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121737022605394845.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal (subscription)

[Kutjara]

1. Sounds like the beginning of a lucrative market...

...for software that mimics the stuff these eavesdropping programs want to see. Record half an hour of yourself beavering industriously away at your computer, spend another half hour opening impressive-looking, work-related documents on your desktop, invest in a noise-canceling microphone, and then pipe it all to a program that creates the illusion of you sitting at your PC, working away. Meanwhile, it's party time!

[TomInTib]

2. Screw it. From now on, I'm working naked. nt

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Show-off

[lonestarnot]

4. I think you should wear a hat!

[TomInTib]

6. Not a bad idea.

I work on my laptop, and sometimes go out on the veranda to work.

And I wouldn't want to get sunburned on any uh.... "sensitive" parts.

But I would have to find a hat with a pretty wide brim.

:hi:

[hisownpetard]

8. Send us a picture of you in your sombrero.

[TomInTib]

9. Only if you post one of you in your tutu.

Deal?

[hisownpetard]

10. Actually, I gained a little weight, so now it's a four-four.

[Love Bug]

5. As instrusive as this is,

it's no different than the company monitoring you when you are in-house. They have the right to make sure you are working while on their time and not goofing-off blogging to political sites....


Uh ... never mind! :blush:

[question everything]

11. The question is of whether when you work at home you are supposed to

constantly click on the keyboard or dial phone numbers.

In house you don't. You are entitled to breaks and, in most cases - I hope - you don't need to notify the managers that you are going to the bathroom, for which time you are not going to be paid.

On second thought, isn't that what Bush wrote to Condi several years ago?

I agree that whether in HQ or at home, one should remember that the computer and the cell phone and land phone are company property. But such a constant surveillance amounts to almost a modern-day slavery, which I think call centers and data entry jobs are, regardless.

I think that some kind of a contract should be signed where it is clear when and how the home worker does the job.

(Of course, I also believe that when I am going to hire someone I will call only the references provided, not try to google him/her or call someone that may know the candidate but who is not on the references list. If I am not going to trust that person's references, why bother hiring him/her?)

[JerseygirlCT]

14. And how many person-hours is the company using to

monitor all this?

[Iris]

15. why would my land line be company property?

[Ezlivin]

7. What a great way to transfer viruses, bots and malware back to the main server

This could be a spectacular way of passing evil stuff to a higher level.

Hell, I'm not even a hacker and I thought of it. Start your timers....

[BlooInBloo]

12. hahaha! Not.

[JerseygirlCT]

13. Seems to me that if you're managing people righ t- and that

includes understanding what they're supposed to be doing and how long it should take, that you could simply measure the work output.

Does it matter if someone can get twice as much done in the same time at home because there are fewer distractions? If they're still getting the job done, who cares?

[SocratesInSpirit]

16. As long as the employee is getting their work done

on time and at high quality, why does a company have to monitor their every freaking move? I'm sick of hearing about this Big Brother crap - employees are adults and should be treated as such.