Are you being productive enough at work today?
Or are you not logging the required keystrokes or 'productive' minutes to get paid?
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A couple of weeks ago, I applied to a company that seemed very cool, understanding, and respectful of their employees. The application itself was simple, but the red flag appeared in my inbox a couple of days later — an IQ test that was proctored (all before I even spoke to a human being or received any other piece of communication).
I looked into the proctoring software — it would take pictures from your webcam every 3-5 minutes, note if you moved your mouse away from the test tab with frequent screenshots, and flag something if your eyeballs left the general screen area.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard of proctoring software being used in a professional capacity, but I truly didn’t expect it to be so invasive.
Under the guise of agility
One month into her new job, my friend’s manager told her she needed to track her hours. Perplexed, she confirmed that she was a full-time employee, not a contractor or a freelancer, so what’s with the tracking?
Turns out, the company she worked at wanted to become more agile. That’s a nice word for a (theoretically) better way to work where you’re more flexible in the way you work to create the output you need. In actuality, they just wanted to know, in a granular way, what everyone was working on and if everyone was working their full 8 hours.
It started small & simple: track your hours — yeah, of course, include meetings and the time spent on emails/slack messages/admin work, etc. Yeah, you can do it manually on an Excel sheet, no worries.
A few months later, it got a bit more manic. They asked all the employees to track their hours using actual time-tracking software and monitored how many times they forgot to start/stop. They tracked the number of changes you made (if you forgot to log your hours). Checking emails or Slack messages, informal catchups with your coworkers, thinking/brainstorming, or anything that wasn’t ‘actual work’ in their opinion wouldn’t count toward the 8 hours anymore since they said it was just for ‘productive work.’
“You have to be in front of your computer, in work mode, 55 or 60 hours just to get those 40 hours counted and paid for.”
Are you moving your mouse enough?
More and more companies are going the ‘productivity monitoring’ route whether or not their employees are remote now. Last year, The New York Times wrote about the ‘Worker Productivity Score’ and designed reading their article to feel exactly like you were being monitored.
When you read the article, it tracks how long you took, if you idled, and if you’ve comprehended the article. If you give them camera permissions, they can also take periodic screenshots to really nail down that privacy invasion.
Look, I get that the goal for most companies is to make more money. And to do that, people need to work, meet their deadlines, and deliver their deliverables. Ok, makes sense. 👍🏽
But companies using these productivity monitoring/time tracking products miss a few critical points: Humans cannot focus for 8 hours (+/- 30 mins or an hour for a food break). The average employee (mostly white-collar workers) only does 4-5 hours of focused work per day.
According to Cal Newport, best-selling author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, “three to four hours of continuous, undisturbed deep work each day is all it takes to see a transformational change in our productivity and our lives.”
Don’t miss the word ‘undisturbed’ right next to deep work. Having to start/stop timers or knowing that something is taking minute-ly screenshots of your screen/face doesn’t create a disturbance-free work environment.
Most CEOs/upper management folks who get interviewed talk about working in a ‘flow state’ where you can focus and work on things properly. It’s highly unlikely the upper management folks are also being proctored in an invasive way because to reach a flow state, you need to enjoy what you’re doing and feel like your manager/superior trusts you to handle the task.
Let’s also talk about the hitherto unquantifiable work tasks we all do. Sometimes, we get ideas for marketing campaigns when unloading the dishwasher. Other times, we start the work day sooner if we have to commute and open our laptops on the train. What about sales folks who slowly and steadily build relationships that end up bringing in butt loads of money — but only after a few months?
Catching up with a coworker on their work and watercooler conversations build good workplace relationships to make the environment less hostile — stuff like that leads to higher productivity since people are more likely to collaborate easier, ask for help sooner (and reduce time wasted struggling alone), etc.
The difference between honey & vinegar
Sure, you can scare/annoy people into ‘working’ the full 8 hours by withholding promotions, pay, etc., by tracking them. It probably works, too. I’m sure output increases momentarily, and everyone seems ultra pleased by all the “great work you’re doing!!”
But I have to think that over time, this strategy won’t work in your (the company’s favour). More employees will quit, get burnt out, or figure out ways to trick the system. You’ll get shittier work that’s done, colleagues who hate each other, and who are constantly dismissed even though they’re subject matter experts just because their keystrokes are fewer in number.
There’s a nice healthy balance to be found between wanting to know where to improve vs doing a general privacy invasion on your employees on the daily. There’s also a lot to be said to motivate your employees better, trust them more, and recognize that humans are not machines (yet?), so we’re probably not going to be able to be productive 24/7 (or, in this case, 9-5).
Let’s find a middle ground that fosters trust, empathy, compassion, and mutual respect between employees and employers.
After all, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
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Fun links of the week! 🚀
What my job-hunt currently looks like (not mentioned: visa issues). So if employers still don't trust who they hire to work, then they've got problems.
The disappearing art of maintenance (further reading: the right to repair)
In case you needed a reminder: 22 reasons to love yourself
Affirmations for modern life by Gemma Correll (for The Nib)
Thanks for reading! Please tap the heart if you liked this issue (or like the newsletter in general) so the algorithm overlords take pity on me lol.
I'm totally stunned at the concept of screen and camera monitoring software! Absolute madness. Employers shouldn't lack trust in their employees, this is the exact opposite of flexible working.
I’m always fascinated by this topic. On the one hand, I don’t support the capitalist notion that we all must be 100% productive 100% of the time. And I am against screen monitoring and that weird eyeball monitoring software.
But. My work uses a time tracker tied to specific tasks/items as a means of gathering data on how many people we need to accomplish the workload. One year, based on projections for the coming year, it was calculated we’d need 8 more people to do the work. It was better to know that ahead of time, get the resources, and *not* be drowning in work for months. So it has its upsides. It also depends on how management views it. For my team, it’s pretty chill. I’ve never been questioned on why it took X hours to do Y.