Joseph Lazzarotti writes:
Mr. Degel [of the TV show Restaurant Stakeout] is no doubt an exciting and informative host, but it was not his management advice (which may have been very good) that kept me watching. The level of monitoring employed by the show is indicative of the growing level of surveillance going on at workplaces across the country. But as the New York Times reported on Saturday , and as we have reported previously, monitoring is not limited to fancy cameras tilting and panning. According to the Times’ story, through complex workplace analytics
companies have found, for example, that workers are more productive if they have more social interaction. So a bank’s call center introduced a shared 15-minute coffee break, and a pharmaceutical company replaced coffee makers used by a few marketing workers with a larger cafe area. The result? Increased sales and less turnover.
Of course, privacy and data security concerns exist, but there generally are few current insurmountable legal obstacles in most of the United States if proper steps are taken, such as notifying employees and customers, and managing the data carefully.
Read more on Workplace Privacy Data Management & Security Report.