Virtual Boss Keeps Workers On a Short Leash

Gr8Apes writes "Hitachi has created a 'perfect virtual boss.' The company is manufacturing and selling a device intended to increase efficiency in the workplace called the Hitachi Business Microscope (paywalled). 'The device looks like an employee ID badge that most companies issue. Workers are instructed to wear it in the office. Embedded inside each badge, according to Hitachi, are "infrared sensors, an accelerometer, a microphone sensor and a wireless communication device." Hitachi says that the badges record and transmit to management "who talks to whom, how often, where and how energetically." It tracks everything. If you get up to walk around the office a lot, the badge sends information to management about how often you do it, and where you go. If you stop to talk with people throughout the day, the badge transmits who you're talking to (by reading your co-workers' badges), and for how long. Do you contribute at meetings, or just sit there? Either way, the badge tells your bosses.'"

Comments

Misunderstood?

[AmiMoJo]

Japanese companies have tried stuff like this before, but not so that bosses can harass their employees. They genuinely want to know how to make the business better by finding out how people actually work... You know, like a good boss should.

Obviously the potential for abuse is massive, but I think the article author is projecting their own thinking on to this idea. Aside from anything else abusing it would probably be illegal under Japanese law, as it would be in most European countries.

Re:They should call it an anti-retention device

[DoomHamster]

This is why it is important for the plotucracy to engineer a global economy where capitol can freely traverse national borders but the workforce cannot.