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The IT department was asked to spy on co-workers. It didn't go well

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
'The 15 people in IT were asked to perform 100 video calls to other employees. Spontaneous ones. They were reportedly told to say they were checking to see if the company's VPN was working as it should. The IT people were "told to note whether that employee answered the call promptly and enabled their video during the chat, and to log more personal details, including a description of where that person was working and whether they were dressed professionally." Apparently, if the employee didn't respond to the call three times, they were put on the naughty list. Or, worse, shown straight to the door.' Who would want to work for such a company?
- giantg2 5y ago
  This isn't too far off from what most companies do. How about phishing email? My company sends you test ones. Fail and you have to take training. Teams shows your status as away if you don't touch your computer and aren't in a meeting. If someone calls me and I don't pick up, I get some scrutiny over that and have to explain myself.
oxfordmale 5y ago
A management coach astutely told me that if you feel you can't trust your employees to actually work, you have far bigger problems in your organisation. Once employees clock in what you are doing, it is often easy to find a work around. I can easily install a script to make me appear online all day any chat application. And yes, happy to answer a random call. Most games can easily be paused, so it is a minor inconvenience really
themadturk 5y ago
Years and years ago (early 2000s) I worked at a law firm where one of the legal secretaries (a very good one, not one the firm wanted to lose) reported one of the attorneys she worked for had printed something pornographic on the shared printer, apparently by mistake. She threatened to leave if the culprit wasn't found. The COO and I sat down and determined this would be a good reason for targeted surveillance. The suspect attorney was smart enough to wipe his web history but not smart enough for much else. We put screen capture software on his machine and had firm evidence within a day of him browsing porn. As he was a partner, he was allowed to resign quietly and the software was stashed away, never to be used again. I would feel dirty spying on my fellow employees, but in this case I had no issues at all.

'The 15 people in IT were asked to perform 100 video calls to other employees. Spontaneous ones. They were reportedly told to say they were checking to see if the company's VPN was working as it should. The IT people were "told to note whether that employee answered the call promptly and enabled their video during the chat, and to log more personal details, including a description of where that person was working and whether they were dressed professionally." Apparently, if the employee didn't respond to the call three times, they were put on the naughty list. Or, worse, shown straight to the door.' Who would want to work for such a company?

giantg2 5y ago
This isn't too far off from what most companies do. How about phishing email? My company sends you test ones. Fail and you have to take training. Teams shows your status as away if you don't touch your computer and aren't in a meeting. If someone calls me and I don't pick up, I get some scrutiny over that and have to explain myself.

oxfordmale 5y ago

A management coach astutely told me that if you feel you can't trust your employees to actually work, you have far bigger problems in your organisation. Once employees clock in what you are doing, it is often easy to find a work around. I can easily install a script to make me appear online all day any chat application. And yes, happy to answer a random call. Most games can easily be paused, so it is a minor inconvenience really

themadturk 5y ago

Years and years ago (early 2000s) I worked at a law firm where one of the legal secretaries (a very good one, not one the firm wanted to lose) reported one of the attorneys she worked for had printed something pornographic on the shared printer, apparently by mistake. She threatened to leave if the culprit wasn't found. The COO and I sat down and determined this would be a good reason for targeted surveillance. The suspect attorney was smart enough to wipe his web history but not smart enough for much else. We put screen capture software on his machine and had firm evidence within a day of him browsing porn. As he was a partner, he was allowed to resign quietly and the software was stashed away, never to be used again. I would feel dirty spying on my fellow employees, but in this case I had no issues at all.