So many people have been discussing activity tracking (not badge in and out) but what exactly does it entail? Surely it can't just be how many emails you send or read or the time spent on apps?
If I run a script or load a page and it takes, say, a minute, and I don't do anything else in that minute, is that a minute if inactivity?
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What does it mean to stay “logged in” 8 hours? What can I do to categorize myself as being active at the beginning and end of the day?
It seems like being logged into a computer, connected to the network. Maybe I will plan to send an email everyday at the beginning and end of the day.
Sometimes I close my laptop and answer emails the rest of the day from my phone. I’m worried about getting flagged.
Hopefully I can get into an easy routine that meets the criteria. One more report to stay off of.
Nobody is questioning the possibility - only the existence
@dq here, for @fy & @b3 and anyone else who doesn't believe feel free to ask your manager. If they claim they can't see it press the next level higher. Or shaddup :D
This isn't fearmongering, simply data, but we should know what is being done by our employer. Not to skirt, but to be able to explain instances where a violation is claimed but we have no proof to refute. For example, if we're watching a video through Pluralisight, DevU, etc is that correctly reflected or would we appear to be "idle". I would post the screenshot snippet I have of the report on Imgur but it would be unfortunate if that screencap then implicated the source party unintentionally.
And to reiterate, if you're working and doing your job there is no worry. The only worry is when you get flagged and you don't have some calendar entry or other note as a reminder so you can justify the inactivity.
Let’s not assume this level of tracking exists just based on an anonymous person’s say so. Develop critical thinking skills.
The bigger issue is this level of tracking means leadership has no idea how to measure quality results. If I hired someone to paint a wall I don’t need detailed video surveillance to tell me the work got done. I could just look at the end result. Not the case with these guys.
Yeah - I’m really going to frantically monitor my teams status..
@dx i have started signing up for useless distros wherever possible. So I can follow the same strategy during slow times, work slowly and deliberately on clearing my inbox. Or if I'm pressed and its busy, I can deal with the useless emails in bulk.
Is this whole thing a farce? Yup. But this seems like the cleanest way to meet the metric without radically changing how I work.
I guarantee if this is rolled out company wide you're going to see all sorts of silly behaviors as people try to game the metric as best they can to preserve their sanity
@dx I've been on my computer, doing stuff in a browser or email and teams will go to away status. WTF-- I'm not away. So if I notice, I go into and click around.
For the other questions-- from what I can tell and the agents etc. they can use, they can track pretty much any activity in Office apps. They can also tell what apps are open-- IDE, browser, custom apps, etc.
For an exempt employee it's total bullsh*t. Did I get done what I'm tasked to get done? Yes, then STFU.
As someone who was warned about being on the bad side of this report recently, the only information I got was that HR complained to my manager and my manager believes it's how much teams flagged me as being away.
Now, the problem with this is, I can be watching some training video, go more than 5 minutes without moving my mouse, and while I'm actively engaged in learning, the system flags me as inactive. IIRC, this also happens while watching a teams recording, within teams.
So you have to avoid going yellow, and be actively doing something. My advice is to open, and slowly scroll through every email you get, particularly the spammy notifications from all the automated systems and internal PR garbage. You don't need to read it, just make the system think you're reading it. As an IT employee, it now takes me over an hour to clear up my daily inbox (500+ emails) because of all our automated spam, but at least it shows me doing something rather than being ready to respond to a system crisis at any moment.
Take a look at the MS Teams info on Ms’s site where it talks about what they can track and it’s pretty close. Microsoft says it should only be used for learning about employee adoption of the technology not for productivity tracking. And if you believe that’s wha companies do with the info I have a bridge to sell you.
Any activity tracking will naturally be based on a curve. Try to make sure you are somewhere in the middle of the curve. If you're at the higher end of the activity curve then you are working too hard, lower end then you might be looked at further.
@aq here we go again …
The only reason HY would invest in this is the promise that it will allow them to term some people with cause and avoid severance. The real problem is that it'd have to be egregious to be actionable. Unless your job is a pure production oriented environment, PC activity isn't a measure of much.
@as I do my job but do I take a look at my phone? Yes. Do I focus non-stop on work for 8 hours in a day? I dunno... The work gets done, do I have to spend that much time on the computer at least if it's done?
@aq You say you saw snippets of this report?
If you're just doing your job, you shouldn't have to worry. If you're worried, does that mean you aren't doing your job?
There is no credible evidence that they’re tracking activity other than you being all logged onto your computer from any location for at least eight hours. I know of someone that got in trouble for that.
I have only seen a snippet of the report. It shows what devices you are on (laptop, work terminal/cloud pc, etc) but not your mobile.
Does a count of applications in use although the rollup summing doesn’t make sense to me how it’s laid out.
From there it is literally every action with a count in seconds down to two decimal points. So there are three tabs in the main window, User Experience, Activity Resource Analysis and Microsoft Teams Calls. The line items on User Experience tab are broken up into 4 columns. Recorded At (date/time stamp), Application, Activity/Event and Response Time. Explicitly tracking actions like “Microsoft Outlook” “Preview Mail” 0.08s. Teams, Send Chat, 0.22s
OP here, I have a medical accommodation that was re-approved recently, so a lot of what people are saying about tracking seems more geared to RTO and not to just general tracking clicks or keypresses or whatever, which is what I'm curious about.
People can’t even confirm what is on the hours report - do you think you’ll get good information here. I’’n sure that he overly confident and malicious will weigh in with their Orwellian wet dreams.
My work doesn’t require me to constantly be typing on my computer.. I’m not concerned about this. If they want lay you off, they’re gonna lay you off. If they wanna fire you for cause they’re gonna have to do a lot of paperwork and go through a big process. That process is outlined in the new RTO expectation page. I’m not sure why they’re still speculation about the difficulty and rarity of someone getting fired.
All this stuff can be figured out with simple deductive reasoning. And process of elimination.
I would use AI to do your work, but bear in mind there are cameras on your PC, on the road tracking license plates and employee activity around parking lots and buildings. My goal would be to build a bot that erases that data from Wells Fargo servers. It can absolutely be done. These people did and continue, I am sure to misbehave so AI tools to upend that activity is fair.
I also would love to know.