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New Office Sensors Know When You Leave Your Desk (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: About a year ago, in a widely reported story, journalists at British newspaper the Telegraph found little black boxes installed under their desks. The devices, which had "OccupEye" emblazoned on them, detected if employees were at their workstations. Not shockingly, writers and editors were suspicious, worried that bosses were monitoring their moves, even their bathroom breaks. The National Union of Journalists complained to management about Big Brother-style surveillance. The company insisted the boxes were intended to reduce energy costs, ensuring that empty cubicles weren't overheated or over-air-conditioned, but the damage was done, and the devices were removed. Sensors that keep tabs on more than temperature are already all over offices -- they're just less conspicuous and don't have names that suggest Bond villains. "Most people, when they walk into buildings, don't even notice them," says Joe Costello, chief executive officer of Enlighted, whose sensors, he says, are collecting data at more than 350 companies, including 15 percent of the Fortune 500. They're hidden in lights, ID badges, and elsewhere, tracking things such as conference room usage, employee whereabouts, and "latency" -- how long someone goes without speaking to another co-worker. Proponents claim the goal is efficiency: Some sensors generate heat maps that show how people move through an office, to help maximize space; others, such as OccupEye, tap into HVAC systems.
>how long someone goes without speaking to another co-worker.
The length of time I go without talking to a co-worker is directly proportional to my productivity.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
No, they want to micromanage people in the name of profit.
No, profit doesn't have a factor in it, at least in what I've seen. It's just metrics for the metric god. The management bureaucracy wants to see numbers which they can then pretend to read like tea leaves. From that point they issue some nonsensical decree ("There are too many commits to the repository! Why can't you guys get your software right the first time! I want to see less commits!") and go pat themselves on the back for being effective managers. In the meantime, the employees who have to deal with that BS expend mental energy trying to make sure whatever they're doing results in good metrics, possibly at the cost of productivity and efficiency.