Ducks in a Row: Destroy Morale? There’s an App for That
by Miki Saxon
Want to integrate almost real-time employee action analytics to give your people better feedback and potential career boost?
There’s an app for that.
Imagine a tiny microphone embedded in the ID badge dangling from the lanyard around your neck.
The mic is gauging the tone of your voice and how frequently you are contributing in meetings. Hidden accelerometers measure your body language and track how often you push away from your desk.
The app is from Humanyze, the test subjects work for Deloitte, participation was voluntary and the anonymous results positive.
“The minute that you get the report that you’re not speaking enough and that you don’t show leadership, immediately, the next day, you change your behavior,” says Silvia Gonzalez-Zamora, an analytics leader at Deloitte, who steered the Newfoundland pilot.
“It’s powerful to see how people want to display better behaviors or the behaviors that you’re moving them towards.”
But only when there is choice and trust.
Then there’s the truly evil app that records everything employees do 24/7, with no anonymity .
The U.K.-based company The Outside View, a predictive analytics company, also recently gave staff wearables and apps to measure their happiness, sleep patterns, nutrition and exercise around the clock in an experimental project.
So your boss knows when you decide to watch your favorite TV show, instead of taking a work-related course, or sing karaoke, instead of going to bed early.
“It’s bad enough that we lose control of our identities with threats of identity theft. I think it’s even worse if we lose the privacy of our actions, our movements, our physiological and emotional states. I think that’s the risk.” –Kenneth Goh, professor of organizational behavior at Western University’s Ivey Business School
They actually think that employees will be motivated by coming to work and having their boss ask why they didn’t work-out, but were up until 2 am.
I don’t think so.
As with so many inventions through the centuries, no matter how pure the motives of creators, anything can be corrupted and its use perverted by other humans.
Hat tip to KG Charles-Harris for pointing me to these stories.
Flickr image credit: Hans Splinter
