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(Over-)Measuring the Working Man
HughPickens.com writes: Tyler Cowen writes in MIT Technology Review that the improved measurement of worker performance through information technology is beginning to allow employers to measure value fairly precisely and as we get better at measuring who produces what, the pay gap between those who make more and those who make less grows. Insofar as workers type at a computer, everything they do is logged, recorded, and measured. Surveillance of workers continues to increase, and statistical analysis of large data sets makes it increasingly easy to evaluate individual productivity, even if the employer has a fairly noisy data set about what is going on in the workplace. Consider journalism. In the "good old days," no one knew how many people were reading an article, or an individual columnist. Today a digital media company knows exactly how many people are reading which articles for how long, and also whether they click through to other links. The result is that many journalists turn out to be not so valuable at all. Their wages fall or they lose their jobs, while the superstar journalists attract more Web traffic and become their own global brands.
According to Cowen, the upside is that measuring value tends to boost productivity, as has been the case since the very beginning of management science. We're simply able to do it much better now, and so employers can assign the most productive workers to the most suitable tasks. The downsides are several. Individuals don't in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback.
According to Cowen, the upside is that measuring value tends to boost productivity, as has been the case since the very beginning of management science. We're simply able to do it much better now, and so employers can assign the most productive workers to the most suitable tasks. The downsides are several. Individuals don't in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback.
Instead of using technology to reduce working hours and "trickling down" benefits to everyone, we use it for things like this!
Basing the productivity on pure numbers is not really that telling.
Example: Donald Trump has the best numbers currently... does that mean he will be the best president?
This metric would seem to be encouraging authors that write the clickbaitiest titles. Sounds wonderful.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So we need more cunts a few layers up digging through 'big data' in order to lower the wages of the grunts actually putting out product.
Boo.
I cannot wait until this tech is spoofed into oblivion.
Now wait a second. Management, generally speaking, doesn't understand data. They like to look at a nice Powerpoint slide with people ranked from best to worst. this means that all measures taken relative to workers' productivity get aggregated/coalesced into one, which will most likely be skewed because the aggregation algorithm would never take all variables into consideration.
Management won't look at 15 metrics per worker and try to understand the data; they want one value and that's it. Not good.
Consider journalism. You have Worker A and Worker B. You give A an assignment about work effectiveness evolution through history, and B gets to write about Kim Kardashian's choice of panties colors. A writes a 5000 word article, well documented, with references and shit, with a serious title. B writes a 300 word article filled with generic panties pictures with a clickbait title. A gets 300 views, B gets 5 million views. The algorithm generates a value based on efficiency and ROI, and A gets a score of 5/100 while B gets a score of 100/100. You look at the values, fire A and promote B.
Now you know why most articles out there are about Kim Kardashian and panties. Incidentally, you know why automatically measuring productivity can go tits up very quickly.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Sounds like a regurgitation of Taylorism and time-and-motion studies, for the digital worker. Will people never learn? You get what you measure, and if you aren't extremely careful, you'll cause dysfunction because the measurement goal isn't aligned with the organizational goal. (It always looks like it should be, but it rarely is.)
In any case there's nothing new here, just another well-meaning nitwit looking for the magic bullet.
statistical analysis of large data sets makes it increasingly easy to evaluate individual productivity, even if the employer has a fairly noisy data set about what is going on in the workplace.
This is only true if you know what to measure. Otherwise you are measuring activity. For example one programmer may type out lots of quick lines to empirically discover the format of a string a library returns for a given inputs, another might go directly to the documentation. One will press more keys, but which is more productive? I don't think you can always expect the correct answer if the statistic you use is average key presses per hour.
If someones job is to paint unpainted widgets in bin A and paint them and put them in bin B, that we can pretty accurately measure their productivity by determine how many widgets are in bin B each day and comparing them with others who do the same work, or can we? What about the defect rate? Measuring is hard, knowing what to measure is harder.
How do measure the productivity of a corporate staff attorney? What about route / switch admin? Is one who puts in more change requests more productive or does that just mean (s)he fails to plan ahead?
Be careful what you measure you will probably get favorable results, but its the side effects that will hurt you.
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the pay gap between those who make more and those who make less grows
That line clearly comes from someone supporting the insane wages of top executives in this country under the illusion that they are actually productive. They rarely make anything in terms of actual productivity - they are paid a lot primarily in reward for being well-connected.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So they've figured out how to measure how well something works. This is fine for products where the outcome can be measured with natural numbers. What about products where they can have negative value even when they do work? If I improperly write code that works well when it works, but fails in unknown ways, then my product has a negative value when compared to another product the solves the same problems, but in a way where it fails in predictable ways and can be quickly fixed.
HAHAHA! Boy do you have a lot to learn.
Sure, you might be fine as long as the chosen measurement happens to also measure how you do your job. Unless your job is mechanical and unthinking, that's unlikely to be the case -- it's HARD to measure productivity. 99.9999999% of organizations will choose to measure something more concrete in hopes that it will be a reasonable proxy for productivity. It won't be.
hope they're looking at the right metrics.
The SNAFU principle reigns supreme here.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yellow Journalism is as old as journalism itself. One of my favorite examples of it was in Dan Rather's autobiography where he describes his early years in local TV reporting; when the day's news was boring they tossed in a "fuzz and wuz" story - police racing to the scene to the crime (the fuzz) and the body laying on the sidewalk (the wuz). The internet hasn't changed anything there.
A similar assessment of CEOs and other board positions.
Have gnu, will travel.
"But there’s another fundamental driver of income inequality: the improved measurement of worker performance. As we get better at measuring who produces what, the pay gap between those who make more and those who make less grows."
This assumes people who produce more get paid more. This has not been the case for the past 30 years. That's why there is an income inequality. Wages have not kept pace with Productivity. So the issue has nothing to do with measuring productivity. This has to do with companies keeping worker pay low in order to increase dividends and CEO pay, which is a consequence of lower rates. If companies had to reinvest in the company, worker pay would keep pace with productivity.
Slashdot moderation system used to measure us as a total of karma over all posts to measure the contribution to Slashdot.
Slashdot had to stop using those because of karma whores.
Even meaningless numbers are a strong motivators to cheat a system. You have to be very careful about what you do. Improving those metrics will triumph over quality and ethics.
Reminds of an story about car mechanics.
Maybe it was Sears or it was some other chain store. They decided to measure the value of the mechanics by the dollar value of the business they brought to the company.
All that ended up doing was making the mechanics cheat customers by asking them for extra repairs.
Same thing with the Detroit police department. They used homicide rate as a measure of effectiveness. The police started to classify homicides as suicides and accidents to make the metric look better.
The moral of the story is that for a lot of people, metrics are more powerful than ethics. They will cheat to get better metrics, even in times when those metrics are meaningless.
And yes I know what literally means. Fox News was called on their overwhelming right wing bias and successfully argued before a judge that the were an entertainment network and so laws governing equal time didn't apply.
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Seriously, the only people who should have a problem with this are people who are trying to coast through their job and fly under the radar. Those of us who give 110% each and every day have nothing to worry about because we'll always be at the leading edge of the curve.
So, if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear? Besides, no one gives 110% every day. If they did, they'd be burned out in a year. Then there are the places that just fire the bottom 10% regardless. Yeah, that sounds like a great place to work. I would really feel valued as a human being.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Case in point.
I can spend the time to manually type in a few hundred lines of configuration data for a Router / Switch for every device I manage.
or
I can spend the time to build an app or program that will effectively build the same configuration for me, guaranteed error free. I need
only change the unique data for the site which can be done prior to the program launching.
So, if my employer is tracking how much I type or how many windows I click on in a day*, which of the two above scenarios is the more
efficient methods of getting a job done ? Because I didn't sit for three days straight and manually configure these systems, then I'm not
as productive ?
Heh. I'll say again, metrics are rarely accurate enough to base decisions on by themselves.
*Which is really easy to fudge with a simple script or program.
I've worked in call centers, and done IT work for call centers. If you think you're being tracked at work, and you don't work in a call center, you shouldn't complain. :-) Seriously, I can't think of a more soul-crushing work environment. Every single customer interaction is timed, recorded, and used to rate performance. Some call centers make their employees ask if they can go to the bathroom, like they're back in school. And call centers are usually supervised by the worst micromanagers. Some of this is because the employees aren't exactly high level and will goof off otherwise, but a lot of the monitoring is done simply because they can, and they will use it to control every last aspect of a worker's job.
The problem with this is that the same kind of monitoring is trickling into "knowledge worker" territory. Companies hate paying high salaries, and a lot of them are very insecure, trying to make sure every single minute in the office is a productive one. I only expect this to get worse as the Milennial generation takes over, because they're used to things like gamification and "quantified self" kinds of monitoring. These technologies aren't inherently bad, but they can end up being used for purposes that people don't exactly think of. Take an example of a company giving away a health-related app or something to employees, and using it to track movement in the guise of lowering insurance costs. It's fine right up until the point it isn't...
some of us know how to build, configure, maintain and customize those measuring systems. we're not worried about our jobs, our salaries go ever upward. sucks to be the rest of you....
We have known for hundreds of years that measuring work only serves to get people to game the system. This has been happening in computer science for decades, and it is a well known fact that their is no perfect algorithm that actually measures the value of someones work. Instead we are left counting lines written, and creating loads of problems and reducing actual productivity.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Your value has nothing to do with anything your employer can measure.
This is how we got to be such a sick culture, by thinking that the profits we can generate for our employer equals our value. And if your employer valued the "value" of an employee, how many CEOs would be making 8-digit salaries with golden parachutes and stock options?
IT has become just another tool of control.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The only way to get to 110% is 25% mon-thr and 10% on fri.
People that talk about 110% minimize how hard it is to get anywhere near 100% and stay there. I hate them all. God damn peewee football coaches.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hahahahahahahaha! Ah, the naivety of people thinking they are smart. The slackers will be the only ones with the time to spoof the metrics, so they will look like model employees. Others, not so much. Reminds me of the guy that outsourced his job to India.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
99.9999999% of organizations will choose to measure something more concrete in hopes that it will be a reasonable proxy for productivity. It won't be.
And that is the real problem. There is no known way to overcome it. But MBA bean-counters that lack any understanding of reality will go for metrics every time, regardless of how misleading they are, because these cretins are unable to do anything else.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The basic problem with measuring performance is once there is a specific technical objective function for success established people will work to achieve it in any way possible regardless of whether it is ultimately in the best interests of the company or anyone else. Workers have more incentive, time and energy to find ways to game the system than its designers.
To use TFA's example the result of ratings oriented journalism is apparent to everyone. The media has transformed itself into little more than a professional trolling organization. What is news are stories that push peoples buttons and stoke maximal controversy. They will say, show or print anything for ratings regardless of its information value or relationship to reality. The result is like watching the history channel to learn about history. Few interested in obtaining objectively useful information are willing to bother translating media nonsense into reality.
Not universal. In many smaller organizations the only metric that matters is 'part of family?' or 'boss drinks with you?'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.
Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
My workplace measure the shit out of us so we have to cheat to get any work done. Gaming any statistics beforehand when you are the one how is or are in charge of entering the data is a piece of cake. Keep enjoying your bonus based on our fake data!
FTA: "The result is that many journalists turn out to be not so valuable at all. Their wages fall or they lose their jobs, while the superstar journalists attract more Web traffic and become their own global brands."
So at least in journalism, only the most popular will have a subsidized voice, and the rest will have to pay their own way if they want to share their insights. Since when is popularity the ultimate measure of value in a society, especially when it comes to news? Sometimes people really need to hear the stuff that's scary, uncomfortable, guilt-inducing, etc., even though it's not popular. If we continue down this road then I hope everyone enjoys having Fox-style reporting as the only available news source.
Yes, I realize I've used a 'reductio ad absurdum' argument, but I don't think I've gone very far into absurdity here. It strikes me that in a lot of ways this kind of 'metric' is merely measuring quantity when its purveyors seem to think that it measures quality. Maybe that's because quantity is so much easier to measure. But like a drunk searching for his keys under a streetlight because 'the light's better there', it's probably counterproductive.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
... the N's do justify the means.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I'm convinced that scientific management is anything but, as it assumes that management understands what is relevant, causes and effects, and employees, none of which is the case.
For example, I had the highest customer retention, the greatest community support, and the greatest revenue of any one in the tax department, yet I did as I pleased, broke every rule, but always I pursued the bottom line benefit for my employer, my customers, and our citizens, and they knew it in their hearts. But can what I do be measured? Not even by me!
I just look at the pictures. Ummm, pictures of cats, yes, that's it. Funny funny cats.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Unlike many of my office co-workers, I've done manual/physical labor in warehouses and what not. When I hear about office productivity and reporting, I often wonder just exactly what it is they're measuring because for software development, none of the metrics actually seem to apply. With physical labor, I never felt like I had a moment to breathe. Twenty eight boxes per minute was the standard, the goal, and the basis for all future performance metric evaluations (including raises and bonuses). Clock in. Start. Twenty eight boxes per minute. Small boxes. Big boxes. Heavy boxes. Broken boxes. reach, grab, place. reach, grab, place. No moments to think about life, what I want for dinner, what my professor talked about in my day classes. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Twenty eight times per minute (my rate was around 35-40, though. I miss being young, but I don't miss wasting that youth on boxes). As I moved into the "white collar" world, the standards seemed to change. "File X papers/hour. Answer X phone calls per hour." Same sort of goals. I knew exactly where I stood at all times in the grand queue of things.
As a developer.. It's a completely different world. Lines of Code? Bullshit, everyone knows how to game that. Milestones? Same deal. Half the time we're completing projects in 1/8th the allocated time and browsing the web the rest, the other half we're scrambling because they only allocated 1/8th the time it actually requires to get the job done (Try working for the .gov as a software developer.. Estimates aren't really an art as much as a "what can I say to make the guy in charge of my contract happy?", apparently). Etc. Productivity as a measurement in software development is increasingly idiotic. Whenever I hear "agile" and "scrum" I hear "We're trying to make objective measurements on something that really has no objective measurements because we have to check this box right here that says I have to have objective proof I'm actually working and doing my job!" Bleh.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
"Today a digital media company knows exactly how many people are reading which articles for how long.."
Baloney - the may know roughly, with many factors contributing to X percentage of error, including bots, people that land on a page then are distracted to do something else, thus never actually read the article though they are parked on it, then click away after a few minutes, and myriad other reasons I don't have time to type or can't even conceive of at this moment.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Depends on your definition of "cheaper". Few bean counters seem to care about opportunity costs.
doesn't really matter when you turn around and leave right away.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
"In this edition of Tina's hourly newsletter, I compare our projects to various types of wood."
Please tell me what your company is, so I don't ever mistakenly apply there. You sound like a major a$$hole.
If you skip ahead through the dominoes, the bottom line of increased surveillance is, ultimately, it allows for further squeezing of the working class. That's really what it boils down to.
Money gravitates outward from Prolekistan, and will continue as their sole export (labor) increasingly "grows on trees".
I sincerely don't know how to reverse the process.
Your workplace will rapidly fill with nothing but the deadwood who couldn't get a job anywhere else. If someone decent accidentally goes to work for you, he'll be gone as soon as his resume finishes printing.
I work because earning money funds a lifestyle I enjoy.
That's the reason I work. That's not the reason I take a given job.
I took my current job because it interests me, it's fun, it offers me a challenge I can enjoy, I get to work with intelligent passionate people, I can choose my own hours, I can largely choose my own tasks, I manage my own time and when I want to, I can work from home and cuddle my cats while I work.
So no, I don't need a job where my boss gives me a hug every day, but I sure as shit don't work for the pitiful salary I earn.
You want productivity, you'd better give me the working environment that encourages it. Don't like that? Go hire some muppet with no brain.
I have a personal metric: Every year I try and find a way for my employer to save more money than they spend on my salary.
If I can do that, I know that everything else I do that year is free to my employer and my year end review is a lot easier. All I need to do the rest of the year is avoid adding negative value and I'm sorted.
It's surprisingly easy to hit this metric too. Most companies have a ton of waste.
*I* pay *YOU*. Your SALARY is how I show you your value. Beyond that it is *not my job* to coddle you and deal with your emotional problems. If you don't feel valued as a human being, that is YOUR problem.
If you want a job where your boss gives you a hug every day, that's fine. Go look for it, because you will not find it here.
LOL! Don't worry, with an attitude like yours I won't be applying for your open position.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
So, if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear? Besides, no one gives 110% every day. If they did, they'd be burned out in a year....
Even giving 90-100% every day will also burn you out but i'd say in a only few months/weeks, you can't be productive always running at full capacity, we're human not computers, this is why we sleep, we need time to stop and take a break and even do something unrelated to work so that we can perform better when we are working (like when trying to solve a problem you're stuck on, it helps to go do something else for 15-20 minutes then come back to it.. seems to give a fresher perspective).