Those who lack trust rely on digital snooping software. However, these programmes are controversial – not only legally.

For two articles on the topic of employee monitoring during the coronavirus pandemic on the portal karriere.de and in the Handelsblatt, Handelsblatt journalist Melanie Raidl interviewed, among others, Detective Patrick Kurtz from Kurtz Detective Agency Düsseldorf. The following is the article from karriere.de:

"How Companies Monitor Their Employees in the Home Office"

When employees work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, many employers wonder what they are actually doing. According to media reports, detective agencies receive numerous assignments from companies that mistrust their staff. At a Frankfurt-based company, there are currently said to be up to 25 client enquiries per day, according to Die Zeit and the Hamburger Abendblatt.

 

However, private investigators are facing technical competition. Digital monitoring programmes, euphemistically called "monitoring tools", have seen soaring demand since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The start-ups developing these tracking programmes are predominantly from the USA and have names such as ActivTrak, Timedoctor, Enaible or Hubstaff.

Monitoring in the Home Office: Clear Legal Framework

In the USA, numerous companies, including American Express and the Bank of America, use such monitoring programmes. Works councils, which could raise objections, are rare in the land of unlimited opportunities, and employee rights are minimal.

 

In Germany, it is different. "There is clear case law here," says labour law expert Peter Wedde from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, who completed his doctorate on remote monitoring of telework. "Total surveillance, where the employer can monitor every single work step, is not permitted in Germany."

 

However, this does not appear to prevent companies in Germany from using such programmes. On request, the US monitoring start-up Hubstaff confirmed that it also receives enquiries from Germany and other European countries. Which clients are behind these enquiries remains undisclosed.

 

Suffice it to say: since March, demand has been three times higher than in the previous year, despite not only significant legal hurdles but also doubts about effectiveness.

 

"And as far as digital monitoring options are concerned, there are clear legal restrictions in Germany. If we want to install spyware on a computer, we first require the user’s consent. Therefore, the legal scope of application is very limited," says Patrick Kurtz, who offers monitoring services for companies and private clients through his detective agency.

 

In the modern working world, digital monitoring tools already reach their limits. Occupations with repetitive daily tasks, such as call centre work or customer service, can be analysed statistically to some extent. "But there are professions whose work productivity simply cannot be measured with such tools," says labour law expert Wedde.

Paradox: Surveillance versus Trust-Based Working Hours

For the labour law expert, the behaviour of employers who tend towards digital monitoring is contradictory. Many employers protested loudly last year when the EU decision on working time control was issued. They argued that working time recording was incompatible with trust-based working hours.

 

"However, it becomes paradoxical when employers now resort to monitoring tools to control employees in the home office. Trust-based working hours and simultaneous monitoring do not go together," says Wedde. Companies also run considerable risks if they monitor their staff without consent.

 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict limits on data collection. According to Wedde, employees have the option to claim compensation under the GDPR if they are monitored at their workplace without a legal basis or written consent. If a company is found to have conducted illegal employee monitoring, it could face a fine of up to four per cent of its corporate turnover.

 

Wedde’s conclusion: "A good supervisor should be able to assess the productivity of their employees even without technical tools."

Monitoring Tools: Hubstaff, Timedoctor or Enaible

In the home office, managers lose their sense of control. The employer is virtually forced to trust – or resorts to software such as Hubstaff.

 

The US start-up promises that it can significantly increase employee productivity. Companies would have to pay ten dollars per month per employee. Once activated, the employer has access to a wide range of monitoring methods. These range from simple recording of keystrokes and mouse movements to monitoring internet browsing behaviour and GPS tracking of employees.

 

Timedoctor offers additional monitoring features. For example, videos of an employee’s screen are recorded at regular intervals. Every ten minutes, the webcam also takes a photo to ensure the employee is at their workstation.

 

However, Hubstaff and Timedoctor are only the first step compared to Enaible. The Boston-based start-up also uses an algorithm to automatically evaluate the collected data, without a person having to assess the quality of the work.

 

Advertising agency Omnicom Media Group already uses Enaible, and according to the company, discussions are underway with US airline Delta Airlines and US pharmacy chain CVS Health. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, demand has quadrupled.

 

Founder Tommy Weir explained to the technology magazine Technology Review how his software works: "Imagine managing employees and being able to watch over their shoulder all day and give advice on how they can do their job better. That is what we try to enable with our tool."

 

Employees receive praise and criticism from the machine in the form of productivity scores. Artificial intelligence becomes the taskmaster. The supervisor only sees the end result. For some, this may sound like a nightmare scenario.

Monitoring in the Home Office: Does It Make Sense?

It is highly questionable how effective such monitoring actually is. Studies suggest that productivity does not increase as a result. British anthropologists Michael Fischer and Sally Applin found in their study titled Watching Me, Watching Youthat workplace monitoring causes people to change their behaviour more frequently to adapt to machines. Their conclusion: monitoring does not necessarily make employees more productive, but rather more machine-like.

 

Labour psychologist Simone Kauffeld from TU Braunschweig also views employee monitoring – whether analog or digital – critically. Together with colleagues, she is investigating via a survey the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on virtual collaboration.

 

"I consider this, from a work psychology perspective, a no-go," she says. Employers do not need a report on every single work step or day. "The only thing a supervisor needs to know is whether an employee can complete a task within a given time."

 

Permanent digital monitoring could seriously impair the trust relationship between employer and employee, especially since not all employees can be equally productive at home, Kauffeld explains. "Some will say they are much more productive in the home office. Other employees will be happy to return to the office."

 

Even Patrick Kurtz, who offers monitoring services for companies and private clients through his detective agency, has doubts. Especially in times of home working, surveillance makes little sense because working hours at home can be organised more flexibly than in the office.

 

"Just because someone goes out for personal errands does not mean they are not fulfilling their work duties," says Kurtz. Moreover, the living space belongs to the protected, most private sphere of life, which is absolutely off-limits for private investigators such as those at Kurtz Detective Agency Düsseldorf.

 

In creative professions or jobs without fixed routines, digital monitoring fails. It is also unable to capture work if an employee, for example, collects ideas for a new strategy or project in a notebook rather than typing them into a computer.

 

"Ultimately, these tools are just statistical programmes running on high computing power. They say very little about the quality of an employee’s work," says Wedde. They at most suggest an objective assessment of work productivity.

Note

The original article by Melanie Raidl and Roman Tyborski appeared on karriere.de, a portal of the Handelsblatt Group. Highlights (bold text) and hyperlinks on this page may differ from the original.

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