It Is Beneficially Correct to Place Sensors on Employees

Jason Fried argues that bringing people together to work in the same physical location creates distractions that inhibit individual employees’ ability to get their work done. Mr Fried’s identifies managers and meetings as a main cause of distraction in the workplace, but face to face communication is the real focus of his argument. Meetings and managers often interrupt employees from the task that they are working on. Employees have little or no control over when these interruptions will take place. After these interruptions, individuals have to reset their train of thought after the interruption, which then adds to the amount of time required to complete the task that they are working on.

Even though smart phones are supposed to make working easier, studies have shown that they actually hurt our performance. In 2015, a Journal of Experimental Psychology study had 166 people to test. The experiment was to have the participants work on a challenging task while their phones start beeping and buzzing. The results showed that the worker became messier and had their attention elsewhere, whether or not they checked their phone. Dr. Adrian Ward is a psychologist and marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin, he has been working with the effects of smart phones on our thoughts and decision making. Dr. Ward believes that we have grown so attached to our phones that they reduce our intelligence with their presence. To test this theory, Dr. Ward and three colleagues began a clever experiment to test his idea. They decided to enlist 520 undergraduate students at UCSD and make them perform two standard tests of intellectual acuity. The first test evaluated “available cognitive capacity”, it’s a test to measure how fully a person’s mind can focus on a single task. The second test gauged “fluid intelligence”, a person’s ability to understand and answer an unfamiliar problem. The only difference was the location of the student’s smart phone. Some students had their phone on the desk, while others had it in their bag or pocket. Others were even asked to leave their phone in a different room. The results of this test showed that “As the phone’s proximity increased, brainpower decreased” (pg.3).

Workplace privacy is one of the biggest issues facing businesses today. Do you feel like you are being watched all the time, all your e-mails being read, and every key stroke is being monitored by your boss? Some people feel this way and that is why privacy in the workplace is a problem with many businesses today. Employees feel like they are not being trusted, or feel the company invades on their personal privacy, or violates their fourth amendment rights. On the other hand many businesses have many federal and state laws to follow, and must keep their assets safe, and their employees. Technology makes communications of all sorts as easy as a few pushes of a button. This technology makes it

It is safe to say that in today’s modern society there is a trend to advance modern technology and use the best available technology in the workplace. According to Slack (2007), the move towards ‘automated technology’ doesn’t necessarily mean it is a justifiable decision, as it may not benefit the organisations net cost savings.

Surveillance of employees is a mandatory subject in regards to bargaining. Surveillance is sometimes used in the coercion of employees. The employer can do this by using photographs or surveillance cameras. The National Labor Relations Board believes that if a company photographs employee’s that are participating in activities protected by the act, that the employer violates the act and the rights of the employee and can also make the employee feel intimidated. In contrast, the National Labor Relations Board states that if the surveillance is of mere observation and is open, public activity that is on or close to the employer’s property, then it does not violate the act. If there is a reasonable belief of employee misconduct then employers

| As mobile devices become less expensive and continue to evolve in terms of their features, they will become immersed in our professional and social media. The globalization of work has transformed the workplace into a transparent landscape with less reliance on physical location and more emphasis on the context of the task and the technologiesused to get work done. The popularization of mobile technologies has made it easier to navigate this landscape to accomplish work in everyday contexts.

In 2007, a survey by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute that 77% of employers engage in some form of electronic monitoring of employees (American Management Association, 2008). The reason for monitoring primarily consist of tracking employee productivity, legal compliance, and to help assist in performance reviews. Understanding how the fourth amendment guarantees individual privacy underscores the need for caution in advocating Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in tracking onsite and offsite employees.

While I believe that workers should have privacy in their own homes, I also believe that having their actions monitored can benefit the companies that employ them. In the article, there is a line that states, “Employees, of course, resent the relentless monitoring. One UPS driver told Harper’s that the company used performance metrics like “a mental whip,” adding, “People get intimidated and they work faster.”” (The Week). Some may view the idea of a mental whip as a horrible crime against workers, but accessing workers’ activities while on the job is holding these persons accountable for their actions. If a worker is taking too many breaks while driving a UPS truck, if a restaurant cook is on his phone too much during work hours, if a nurse

Organizations use different tools to improve efficiency in the workplace or to give the followers tools to deal with a constant problem. Some organizations are able to organize different types of events outside of the workplace for employees to spend time together in a different kind of setting. By making coworkers interact in different environments without the pressure of the workplace can make

So then how can one observe potential threats to the workplace and increase morale? The answer remains simple, By analyzing employees as a group, workers start to identify as a group, and that bonding between co workers can increase esprit de corps. For example, the article “The rise of workplace spying” told of a Bank of America call firm that examined “tightly knit groups” within their offices and deemed that a 15 minute break would improve social interaction and performance, and it

There are a wide range of wearable technology that is being used in the workforce today. There is wearable technology used for jobs in military purposes, space interaction, firefighters and police officers. I recently read a very interesting article by, Courtney Howard titled, “Widespread use of wearable technology.” “It is

These tools are over used in business and this removes the personal connection between leadership and the workers. In order to meet the demands of our customers and workers, we as leaders need to be able to identify with them and interact in a personal way and come out from behind our computer screens. The hustle and bustle of society today are negatively affecting productivity in the workplace, according to T+D (2007) 57 percent of executives, and 63 percent of the employees agree when workers are friends after work productivity on the job will increase. Furthermore, interacting with workers; employers may learn some are not content in their current position, or do not feel challenged and this is causing their performance to suffer. Due to the frustrations, stress levels, and demands workers deal with daily at work, they just want to punch the clock at the end of their shift and go home. When workers do not spend, a few minutes a day to laugh at something they did or what someone else did, or even create a silly face towards another coworker to cheer someone up; they will lose their personal commitment and will not continue to grow as a person or remain a conductive employee. To increase productivity, management needs to provide times for the workers to relax and enjoy the

Since employees spend a majority of their time at work carrying out their jobs, job design is significant in influencing how individuals behave at work in their organizations. Besides affecting

The study of individual differences in the workplace is not a new phenomenon. Difference between individuals has been the norm since human existence (Diamante & Giglio,

Businesses nowadays are constantly making an effort to monitor employee movements and improve productivity. This is where a device that can help to monitor and build profile of an employee, and improve productivity required. This will enable the organization’s management to gather business insights and improve their profitability.