#bossware

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Wellness surveillance makes workers unwell

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

"National conversation" sounds like one of those meaningless buzzphrases – until you live through one. The first one I really participated in actively was the national conversation – the global conversation – about privacy following the Snowden revelations.

This all went down when my daughter was five, and as my wife and I talked about the news, our kid naturally grew curious about it. I had to literally "explain like I'm five" global mass surveillance:

https://locusmag.com/2014/05/cory-doctorow-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-mass-surveillance/

But parenting is a two-way street, so even as I was explaining surveillance to my kid, my own experiences raising a child changed how I thought about surveillance. Obviously I knew about many of the harms that surveillance brings, but parenting helped me viscerally appreciate one of the least-discussed, most important aspects of being watched: how it compromises being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

As I wrote then:

There are times when she is working right at the limits of her abilities – drawing or dancing or writing or singing or building – and she catches me watching her and gets this look of mingled embarrassment and exasperation, and then she changes back to some task where she has more mastery. No one – not even a small child – likes to look foolish in front of other people.

Learning, growth, and fulfillment all require a zone of privacy, a time and place where we are not observed. Far from making us accountable, continuous, fine-grained surveillance by authority figures just scares us into living a cramped, inauthentic version of ourselves, where growth is all but impossible. Others have observed the role this plays in right-wing culture war bullshit: "an armed society is a polite society" is code for "people who make me feel uncomfortable just by existing should be terrorized into hiding their authentic selves from me." The point of Don't Say Gay laws and anti-trans bills isn't to eliminate gender nonconformity – it's to drive it into hiding.

Given all this, it's no surprise that workers who face workplace surveillance in the name of "wellness" feel unwell as a result:

https://www.ifow.org/publications/what-impact-does-exposure-to-workplace-technologies-have-on-workers-quality-of-life-briefing-paper

As the Future of Work Institute found in its study, some technologies – systems that make it easier to collaborate and communicate with colleagues – increase workers' sense of wellbeing. But wearables and AI tools make workers feel significantly worse:

https://assets-global.website-files.com/64d5f73a7fc5e8a240310c4d/65eef23e188fb988d1f19e58_Tech%20Exposure%20and%20Worker%20Wellbeing%20-%20Full%20WP%20-%20Final.pdf

Workers who reported these negative feelings confirmed that these tools make them feel "monitored." I mean, of course they do. Even where these tools are nominally designed to help you do your job better, they're also explicitly designed to help your boss keep track of you from moment to moment. As Brandon Vigliarolo writes for The Register, these are the same bosses who have been boasting to their investors about their plans to fire their workers and replace them with AI:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/advanced_workplace_tech_study/

"Bossware" is a key example of the shitty rainbow of "disciplinary technology," tools that exist to take away human agency by making it easier to surveil and control its users:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#bossware

Bossware is one of the stages of the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve: the process by which abusive and immiserating technologies progress up the privilege gradient as their proponents refine and normalize dystopian technologies in order to impose them on wider and wider audiences:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

The kinds of metrics that bossware gathers might be useful to workers, but only if the workers get to decide when, whether and how to share that data with other people. Microsoft Office helps you catch typos by underlining words its dictionary doesn't recognize; the cloud-based, "AI-powered" Office365 tells your boss that you're the 11th-worst speller in your division and uses "sentiment analysis" to predict whether you are likely to cause trouble:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Two hundred years ago, Luddites rose up against machines. Contrary to the ahistorical libel you've heard, the Luddites weren't angry or frightened of machines – they were angry at the machines' owners. They understood – correctly – that the purpose of a machine "so easy a child could use it" was to fire skilled adult workers and replace them with kidnapped, indentured Napoleonic War orphans who could be maimed and killed on the job without consequence:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

A hundred years ago, the "Taylorites" picked up where those mill owners left off: choreographing workers' movements to the finest degree in a pseudoscientific effort to produce a kind of kabuki of boss-pleasing robotic efficiency. The new, AI-based Taylorism goes even further, allowing bosses to automatically blacklist gig workers who refuse to cross picket-lines, monitor "self-employed" call center operators in their own homes, and monitor the eyeballs of Amazon drivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

AI-based monitoring technologies dock workers' wages, suspend them, and even fire them, and when workers object, they're stuck arguing with a chatbot that is the apotheosis of Computer Says No:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

There's plenty of research about AI successfully "augmenting" workers, making them more productive and I'm the last person to say that automation can't help you get more done:

https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/augmented-workforce

But without understanding how AI augments class warfare – disciplining workers with a scale, speed and granularity beyond the sadistic fantasies of even the most micromanaging asshole boss – this research is meaningless.

The irony of bosses imposing monitoring to improve "wellness" and stave off "burnout" is that nothing is more exhausting, more immiserating, more infuriating than being continuously watched and judged.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #surveillance #workplace surveillance #disciplinary technology #bossware #taylorism #ai #automation unemployment #wellness #health #labor #parenting #luddism

[aayatali]

#workforce #future of work #great resignation #bossware #augmented reality #coworking #DEI #digital nomad #freelancer #ESG #proptech #quiet quitting #quiet firing

[sifytech]

Big Brother is Watching You!

Adarsh looks into the murky area of computer monitoring software that allow employers to surveil on their employees, often without consent Read More. https://www.sify.com/technology/big-brother-is-watching-you/

#BigBrother #Bossware #ComputerMonitoringSoftwares #EmployeeMonitoring #EmployeeTrackingSoftware #ITfirm #RemoteWorkers #StaffMonitoring #Watching

[teledyn]

As an epilogue to the Cybersyn story, Cory Doctorow gives us a survey of today's state of the art in what he calls "Bossware", which, as it turned out, is hardly the "conversation amplifier" envisioned by Allende and Beer. Careful what you ask for, you might get it!

(I thought the lame "psych profile quiz" was misguided but kinda cute. As soon as they mentioned KPI's, however, I knew I had to plan an escape. Happily the KPI's planned it for me!)

#thispostmaybemonitoredforqualitycontrolortrainingpurposes #surveillance capitalism #bossware #theresahelluvagooduniversenextdoor

[dbtvweb]

conheça o Bossware e como ele funciona

conheça o Bossware e como ele funciona

Confira como funciona o software que permite vigiar o funcionário durante o seu expediente. Imagem: Ignatiev / shutterstock.com Tempo estimado de leitura: 3 minutes Eletrobras é privatizada com ações valendo R$ 42 A utilização dos Bossware tem se tornado cada vez mais comum no trabalho. Esses são programas que podem registrar ações como o horário que o trabalhador liga o computador, quais…

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#Bossware #Como #Conheça #Ele #funciona

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Whether you call it “tattleware,” “bossware,” or “surveillance capitalism,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has had enough of exploitative workplace monitoring technologies. Late last week, Casey and a handful of other Senate Democrats introduced the Stop Spying Bosses Act, which would help protect workers from intrusive employer surveillance both on and off the clock.

The legislation would require “timely and public” disclosures by companies about the data they’re collecting on employees, prohibit businesses from using surveillance practices that obstruct union organizing or monitor workers while they’re off the clock, and create a new division of the Department of Labor to regulate workplace surveillance. Sens. Cory Booker, John Fetterman, Elizabeth Warren, and Brian Schatz are cosponsoring the bill, which has also garnered support from some major labor groups.

Workplace surveillance has been a growing area of concern for Democrats in the past few years, as the shift to remote work during the pandemic has prompted increased use of employee monitoring technologies. Since the onset of the pandemic, the percentage of large companies that digitally monitor their workers has doubled, to more than 60%. At a time when managers can no longer keep an eye on workers in the office, they’ve increasingly relied on technologies such as keylogger software, geolocation tools that track workers’ physical movements, and even software that monitors worker attentiveness with webcams, using biometric data to scrutinize minute body movements and facial expressions.

Currently, federal law gives workers few protections from these kinds of surveillance practices. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 does have some safeguards against workplace monitoring, but it has wide-ranging exceptions that allow employers to keep tabs on virtually all communications for “legitimate business purposes.” Currently, no federal law requires employers to disclose that they are monitoring workers, though individual states are increasingly taking steps to protect workers’ rights. In May 2022, for example, New York passed a law requiring private companies to publicly disclose whether employees will be electronically monitored, following similar legislation in Delaware and Connecticut. In California, a bill introduced last year would eliminate tools like facial recognition and emotion recognition technologies from the workplace.

The National Labor Relations Board is beginning to address the issue at the federal level, too. Last fall, the agency’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a memo indicating that companies have overreached with their aggressive surveillance. She recommended that the NLRB impose a requirement that employers tell workers about the surveillance tools they use to monitor them, the justifications for those tools, and how they use the information they collect from workers.

In the memo, Abruzzo also acknowledged “abusive electronic monitoring” could interfere with employees’ right to organize a union or engage in other protected labor activities. As I’ve written before, unions around the country are currently in the middle of negotiating how data collected on workers can be used by employers. At companies like Amazon, unionization efforts are being driven partly by a culture of relentless workplace surveillance—and in some cases employers are responding to unionization efforts by doubling down on digital monitoring. Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, used heat maps to identify its stores at risk of unionization, according to Insider.

While the bill isn’t likely to pass in a divided Congress, it’s a sign that the proliferation of workplace surveillance during the pandemic is finally getting more national attention. “As the power imbalance in workplaces continues to grow, employers are increasingly using invasive surveillance technologies that allow them to track their workers like pieces of equipment,” Casey said in a statement introducing the legislation. “The Stop Spying Bosses Act is a first step to level the playing field for workers by holding their bosses accountable.”

#us politics #news #mother jones #2023 #Sen. Bob Casey #Stop Spying Bosses Act #Department of Labor #workplace surveillance #sen. cory booker #sen. John Fetterman #sen. elizabeth warren #sen. Brian Schatz #keylogger software #geolocation #biometric data #Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 #National Labor Relations Board #Jennifer Abruzzo #Democrats

[azspot]

If you're wondering how the forces of bossware, homelessness, and other enshittifying factors came to rule, it's actually pretty straightforward. 40 years ago, we installed a software patch called neoliberalism (in some regions, this patch was had localized names like Thatcherism or Reaganomics). 40 years later, the patch is an unequivocal failure and now it's our job to roll it back, despite all the broken dependencies this will trigger.

Cory Doctorow

#neoliberalism

[mariacallous]

You're not being paranoid. If you always feel like somebody's watching you, as the song goes, you're probably right. Especially if you're at work.

Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, as labor shifted to work-from-home, a huge number of US employers ramped up the use of surveillance software to track employees. The research firm Gartner says 60 percent of large employers have deployed such monitoring software—it doubled during the pandemic—and will likely hit 70 percent in the next few years.

That's right—even as we've shifted toward a hybrid model with many workers returning to offices, different methods of employee surveillance (dubbed "bossware" by some) aren't going away; it's here to stay and could get much more invasive. 

As detailed in the book Your Boss Is an Algorithm, authors Antonio Aloisi and Valerio de Stefano describe "expanded managerial powers" that companies have put into place over the pandemic. This includes the adoption of more tools, including software and hardware, to track worker productivity, their day-to-day activities and movements, computer and mobile phone keystrokes, and even their health statuses. 

This can be called "datafication" or "informatisation," according to the book, or "the practice by which every movement, either offline or online, is traced, revised and stored as necessary, for statistical, financial, commercial and electoral purposes."

Ironically, experts point out that there's not sufficient data to support the idea that all this data collection and employee monitoring actually increases productivity. But as the use of surveillance tech continues, workers should understand how they might be surveilled and what, if anything, they can do about it.

What Kind of Monitoring Is Happening?

Using surveillance tools to monitor employees is not new. Many workplaces continue to deploy low-tech tools like security cameras, as well as more intrusive ones, like content filters that flag content in emails and voicemails or unusual activity on work computers and devices. The workplace maxim has long been that if you're in the office and/or using office phones or laptops, then you should never assume any activity or conversation you have is private.

But the newer generation of tools goes beyond that kind of surveillance to include monitoring through wearables, office furniture, cameras that track body and eye movement, AI-driven software that can hire as well as issue work assignments and reprimands automatically, and even biometric data collection through health apps or microchips implanted inside the body of employees.

Some of these methods can be used to track where employees are, what they’re doing at any given moment, what their body temperature is, and what they’re viewing online. Employers can collect data and use it to score workers on their individual productivity or to track data trends across an entire workforce.

These tools aren't being rolled out only in office spaces, but in work-from-home spaces and on the road to mobile workers such as long-haul truck drivers and Amazon warehouse workers.

Is This Legal?

As you might imagine, the laws of the land have had a hard time keeping up with the quick pace of these new tools. In most countries, there are no laws specifically forbidding employers from, say, video-monitoring their workforce, except in places where employees should have a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” such as bathrooms or locker rooms.

In the US, the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act laid out the rule that employees should not intercept employee communication, but its exceptions—that they can be intercepted to protect the privacy and rights of the employer or if business duties require it, or if the employee granted prior permission—make the law toothless and easy to get around.

A few states in the US require employers to post notice if they are electronically monitoring people in the office, and there are some protections for the purpose of collective bargaining, such as discussing unionizing.

In February, US Democratic senators led by Bob Casey of Pennsylvania moved to introduce legislation to curtail workplace monitoring by employers. It would require bosses to better notify employees of on- and off-duty surveillance and would establish an office at the US Department of Labor to track work monitoring issues.

What You Can Do

Privacy experts say that unfortunately for many employees, the only recourse for a worker who doesn't like a company's surveillance policies is to find another job.

Short of that, employees can make a formal request for disclosure of a company's data collection and surveillance policies, typically from the human resources department. Such policies may be outlined in an employee handbook, but also may not be readily available, especially for smaller companies and startups. Workers who are part of a workers' union can request the information through their representatives.

A company may not know it is required to post that it's surveilling employees or that it is in a state where two parties must consent to phone-conversation monitoring. You could choose to let your company know it's not in compliance, and if the company doesn't make changes (and you’re in the United States), you could alert your state's workforce commission or file a complaint with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration or over HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) medical privacy issues.

Apart from all that, general data hygiene is also a good counter. Clear your browser cache regularly, and don't keep private data on work devices or transmit them over work email accounts. Block your workstation's webcam when it's not in use (if you're allowed to do that) and ask your employers if you can opt out of surveillance tools that are not required for your work.

Most importantly, be mindful when your employer issues notices about workplace privacy changes or when new software or hardware is introduced for the purposes of monitoring. Ask questions and research what these tools are if you don't get a good explanation from your bosses.

[vbadabeep]

[shreygoyal]

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A survey of 1,250 US employers found 60% with remote employees are using work monitoring software to track web browsing and application use. And ≈ nine out of 10 of the companies said they had terminated workers after implementing monitoring software.

(Source)

#My Tweets #Late Stage Capitalism #work from home

[hamsterl0v3er123]

Peeping Tom? More Like Peeping Boss

If Google and Facebook constantly invading everyone’s right to privacy wasn’t disturbing enough, it is even less comforting to know that employers can as well! With the development of employee surveillance technology, or bossware, employers can collect data from any online activity that has bossware on it. Based on the data they collect employers can dock their employee’s pay or even fire them without them even knowing about the surveillance that they are under.

While this invasive surveillance technology is not new, like many of the issues today, the covid-19 pandemic exacerbated this issue. Before the pandemic, very few companies used bossware. One company that used bossware before the pandemic is Arise. Arise is a notoriously abusive call center. While this company is certainly not a household name, many people have encountered this company without even knowing it. This is because people will think they are calling these partners of Arise, such as Disney or Airbnb, but instead they have reached one of Arise’s employees who has no real affiliation with these other companies. Since Arise workers do not work for these other companies, they have to be trained to pretend that they do. However, they are forced to pay for this training themselves. The workers are also forced to use a personal computer for this job. Clearly, this company has some shady practices; but these practices become abusive when bossware is factored in. Not only do they listen to every phone call, but they also force their employees to download software on their personal computer that monitors everything. Text messages, passwords, audio from their microphone, footage from their webcam, and every website they visit are all examples of the data bossware extracts from an employee's PERSONAL device. To collect this much data from employees is unnecessary, invasive, unethical, and illegal. Not only do they collect all this unnecessary data, but they can use this data against employees to reduce their pay or fire them.

Before covid, Arise was one of the few companies using bossware; and companies, like Arise, who utilized this software usually had bad reputations to go along with this bad practice. But, to no surprise of anyone, lockdowns increased the number of people who worked from home and blurred ethical lines. And, to quote Cory Doctorow, “The pandemic was a great accelerant for late-stage capitalism, converting our homes to rent-free annexes of our employers' facilities, and turning "work from home" into "live at work.". With this change in work environment and added vulnerability came an influx of bossware. Many corporations indulged in bossware because they did not trust their employees to be productive at home; but despite lockdowns ending, bossware is still in effect everywhere.

It is highly concerning how much this software has spread since its legality is questionable at best and plain ole illegal at worst. As previously mentioned, this software is very invasive and collects a lot of data on its users. Employers use this data to determine compensation, to decide the employee's future with the company, and it can also just be used as an evaluation tool. Compensation, firing, and evaluations are all necessary within companies; However, when these necessary, life altering decisions, are made using software that does not consider personal factors companies are risking discrimination. These programs run the risk of penalizing employees who are taking breaks for medical reasons, taking breaks for prayer, or even taking time to think about the work getting done. Discrimination is still discrimination, even when technology is involved.

Due to the unfair and high-risk consequences this software creates for employees, employees are incentivized to cater to their bossware’s system by any means necessary. However, this does not have the effect that companies are looking for, which is an increase in productivity. Instead, employees cater to what this software measures, like clicks and mouse wiggles. In many cases, this can counteract productivity because employees are more focused on this than their actual work. This is a clear example of Goodhart’s Law. Goodhart’s Law is the idea that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. When Goodhart’s law is not understood by people who make and enforce measures, they risk having unintended consequences. In the context of bossware, companies try to increase the productivity of employees by measuring things like clicks. However, this has the unintended consequence of people focusing so much on increasing their number of clicks that their productivity decreases.

Research demonstrates how the implementation of employee surveillance backfires in other ways than just decreased productivity. Harvard ran studies to better understand the effects of workplace surveillance. In one study they found, “that monitored employees were substantially more likely to take unapproved breaks, disregard instructions, damage workplace property, steal office equipment, and purposefully work at a slow pace, among other rule-breaking behaviors”. Impeding on privacy does not create an environment of trust or care. Docking employees pay because the spyware they were forced to install on their computer decided they took too long in the bathroom will not motivate anyone to be an "upstanding employee". Employees are more than just workers, they are people; when people are treated unfairly, they will retaliate.

Bossware is unnecessary. Instead of spying on employees, tallying up their keystrokes, and withholding their earned wages because they did not click an appropriate amount, employers should just evaluate the work getting done. Making sure employees are meeting deadlines, showing up to work on time, and are polite to customers are an actual measure of productivity and are completely valid to track. There is no point in collecting all this data on employees if their tasks are being completed. Bossware may not be an effective measure of productivity, but it is an effective waste of time and money for companies to invest in to. Regardless, if companies want to use this software, at the very least, they need to be transparent about the data they collect and how they use it.

#online privacy #workers rights #data privacy #worldwide privacy tour #digital activisim

[hackernewsrobot]

How companies like Amazon and JPMorgan spy on their staff

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-companies-spy-on-employees-bossware-jpmorgan-amazon-monitor-rto-2023-10

[ericvanderburg]

Employee monitoring: is ‘bossware’ right for your company?

http://i.securitythinkingcap.com/SrRhnP

[insurgentepress]

Agencia de EEUU advierte sobre uso de “bossware”

Las herramientas de “bossware” operadas por inteligencia artificial que rastrean de cerca el paradero, las pulsaciones de teclas y la productividad de los trabajadores también pueden ser una violación de las leyes de discriminación.

Agencias, Ciudad de México.- Las herramientas de “bossware” operadas por inteligencia artificial que rastrean de cerca el paradero, las pulsaciones de teclas y la productividad de los trabajadores también pueden ser una violación de las leyes de discriminación, indicó la titular de la agencia estadounidense encargada de hacer cumplir los derechos civiles en los lugares de trabajo. Charlotte…

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[alexjdakers]

Photography as an instrument of control and surveillance.

One of the first things that came to mind when thinking about how photography (and cameras in general, including for video) can be used as an instrument of control and surveillance was actually related to a midterm I just had in another class, COMM 254 The Politics of Algorithms.

This midterm (or at least, the prompt on it that I chose to answer) related to an article in the Guardian about "bossware" - that is, surveillance technologies being used by companies to monitor their employees when working remotely. Among the various such technologies and tools mentioned was the capability to utilize webcams on computers to randomly capture pictures and even record video when employees are working remotely. This of course is... pretty creepy, and worrying, to think about, and raises all sorts of invasion of privacy concerns, but it's a way in which photography and cameras can be, and are definitely being, used for surveillance.

Tying in what is presented in the "Reading Photographs" chapter by Richard Salkeld, this could relate to some of the ideas posed by Michel Foucalt on surveillance and control - particularly as it relates to the principle that we "internalize the mechanism of observation," meaning that we (i.e., any human being) might be manipulated to behave a certain way if we know there is a chance that we are being observed at any time.

In turn, this could also relate to the "Dear Stranger" work by Shizuka Yokomizo. The individuals photographed for that project have, of course, given consent to be captured on camera (which is more than can be said for employees being monitored by "bossware") - however, there must still be a sense of unease (or I would feel that, anyway) that there is a relative stranger out there in the darkness outside your window, taking a picture of you. I would imagine that even the people who agreed to participate in Yokomizo's project might have behaved a little differently (dressed differently, posed, etc) with the knowledge that they would be photographed at a predetermined time, as opposed to if it was a random act of voyeurism.

Cover picture courtesy of: https://www.kolide.com/blog/your-company-s-bossware-could-get-you-in-legal-trouble

[azspot]

Precariousness is built into the gig economy, which I guess is why people in conventional white-collar employment look condescendingly on those who work in it. Such complacency may be unwise, because Taylorism 2.1 is coming for lots of them, especially if they are luxuriating in the flexibility of working from home. In that sense, the pandemic was a pivotal moment in the evolution of employment because companies became paranoid about the need to make sure that remote workers were actually working. And so they installed monitoring software – “bossware” – on their machines.

This software is often very intrusive, enabling employers to monitor keystrokes, listen to conversations and track employees’ movements. Wired reported that in June, the UK-based online résumé builder StandOutCV analysed 50 of the most common monitoring tools to find what kind of data they collect and how. Compared with 2021, when it last ran the study, a quarter of tools have more invasive features. There’s been a surge in mechanisms that facilitate location tracking (up 45%), video/camera monitoring (a 42% rise), document scanning (a 26% increase) and attendance tracking (up 20%). Welcome to the future of white-collar employment.

What’s driving this dystopian trend? One is the fact that the technology enables surveillance in hitherto unimaginable detail and, as the saying goes: “If it can be done, then it will be done” – unless privacy and employment law prevents it. Another is the obsession with efficiency and cost-cutting that drives corporations in a world where maximising profit is the prime goal of executives and directors. But over all of this is the chronic lack of trust that has come to characterise corporate life in the 21st century.

Which brings us back to Fred Taylor. His fans included Henry Ford and Vladimir Lenin, who saw scientific management as a key building block of socialism. Taylor’s appeal, says the Economist, “lay in his promise that management could be made into a science and workers into cogs in an industrial machine. The best way to boost productivity, he argued, was to embrace three rules: break complex jobs down into simple ones; measure everything that workers do; and link pay to performance, giving bonuses to high achievers and sacking sluggards.” How very modern of him.

#work #computing #gigeconomy #surveillancecapitalism