Someone to watch over me - at home!

I came across a really good article via the BBC News website the other day - it looks at the 'latest technology' that allows employees to monitor the productivity of their staff who have the 'luxury' of working at home.

It mainly relates to customer sales agents.

Some details:

Conversations with customers are recorded and analysed by bosses, and performance is monitored constantly by software on her computer.

If you step away for any reason without logging off, the machine will know about it.

Some software suppliers claim that such technology is capable of detecting an angry agent or even a baby crying in the same room.

If there is not a steady stream of mouse movements or keyboard strikes from the machine of a team member, the worker stops accumulating paid minutes.

Modern life is just so good.

See Home work being closely watched by Ian Hardy for more details.

Working for Lidl

An article in The Guardian's G2 section yesterday took readers into the world of Lidl, one of the fastest expanding food retail outlets in the UK.

The article - Cheap - but not so cheerful? (Helen Pidd) - reveals a side of Lidl that many of its shoppers are unlikely to know about.

The spur for investigating employees experience of work at Lidl seems to be The Black Book on Lidl in Europe by Andreas Hamann und Gudrun Giese.

The book in itself is highly critical of what are seen as aggressively expanding discount businesses in Europe.

An employee's perspective is just one dimension of the book, as the following statement suggests:

"With its expansion Lidl is not only exporting the uniform design of the Lidl stores. Numerous reports of employees from packing staff to management make it clear that Lidl also wants to establish its company culture in the new markets. Mercyless work pressure, permanent shortage of staff, small wages, enormous general pressure and unfair checks, that’s what employees experience daily also abroad from Finland to Italy, from Portugal to Poland."

The findings from the article seem to confirm the findings of the book.

Compare and contrast what Lidl have to offer new employees with the article and the book here.

Monitoring in the workplace

WorkSMART from the TUC has recently up-dated its advice for workers on monitoring and Internet policies.

The basis for the advice is as follows:

"Everyone has the right to a private life, even when at work. But privacy at work is becoming more of an issue every day.

New technology allows employers to collect substantial information about their staff, whilst surveillance techniques in the workplace are becoming increasingly sophisticated and intrusive.

Snooping on workers is now technically very easy."

An example of the questions answered by WorkSMART include:

1) How should my employer approach monitoring at work?

2) Is my boss allowed to listen to my voicemail or open my email whilst I’m away from work?

3) Is my employer allowed to monitor my vehicle?

WorkSMART also provide a Know Your Rights leaflet on privacy at work