US Employees Turn to Work Simulations to Avoid Surveillance

2024-07-06 06:42:00

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US companies are fighting against work simulations

July 6, 2024, 8:42 am

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During the pandemic, companies in the US have significantly increased control over their employees. They, in turn, imagine their working hours to avoid surveillance. This results in a theater of absurd productivity.

Mouse movements, keyboard strokes, presentations – but the employee is not actually sitting at the computer, he is taking a nap or hanging the laundry. In the United States, companies are tackling the phenomenon of employees using creative technological solutions to simulate achievement while working from home. It even cost some their jobs. However, the feigned effort is also a result of companies’ increased need for control in mobile working times.

Well-known bank Wells Fargo laid off several dozen employees in May. The accusation: “Simulated keyboard activity that gives the impression of active work.” Wells Fargo “does not tolerate unethical behavior,” the bank said.

Internet stores and video platforms such as Tiktok and YouTube are full of devices, software solutions and advice on how to simulate activity on the computer or other devices provided by the company. This is usually to prevent the computer from switching to sleep mode, activating the screen saver or changing the status from “active” to “inactive” in conferences.

Millions of views

There is the “Mouse Jiggler”: a small device on which the mouse is placed. The computer mouse is then moved at regular intervals. Also common: Open a writing program on the computer and set any letter – line after line, page after page filled with “text” from the same letter. There are also software solutions that periodically “move” the mouse or “press” keys.

Or: start a long presentation and then sit back. “Just press ‘start slideshow’ and everything is good,” says the influencer Sho Dewan in a Tiktok video. He used to be responsible for recruiting personnel and is now sharing his secrets.

Such videos sometimes have millions of views. One user wrote in the comments about the clip: “Why didn’t I get this sooner?” On one occasion, he stuck a computer mouse to a fan that was turned on.

Of course, there is a risk that you will get a high bite. In a Reddit post titled “My boss caught me with a mouse mover,” an employee recounts his bad luck. The revelation was the last straw after he repeatedly apologized at meetings with “power cuts” and “thunderstorms” and said goodbye without a word. Some users advised him to use a physical mouse mover instead of a software one, as it was not that easy to detect.

Surveillance work culture

Basically, employers need to look at themselves because, according to several studies in the US, the controls on their employees have increased significantly when they are working from home and working mobile. For example, demand for software for desktop monitoring, keystroke tracking and even GPS tracking of employees has increased significantly since the pandemic. According to information from the magazine “Harvard Business Review”, a company from Florida installed software on the computers of its employees that takes a screenshot every ten minutes.

According to human resources experts, the surveillance resulted in serious “productivity theater” in some companies where employees faked productivity. The cat-and-mouse game also raises the question of how useful it is to monitor the mouse and keyboard to measure employee productivity and effectiveness.

Last but not least, it can all backfire: the Harvard Business Review magazine found in a survey that monitoring employees are particularly prone to taking unauthorized breaks and ignoring instructions . They were also more likely to damage company property, steal office supplies and “deliberately work slowly,” the report said.

AJ Mizes, head of the consulting firm Human Reach, complained that the result was a work culture that was more characterized by “human relationships and real productivity.” The trend toward excessive surveillance in the US economy is troubling, he said. “Instead of encouraging innovation and confidence, this will only encourage employees to find more ways to appear busy.”