Is your boss watching you?

Indeed its easy to conjure up images of Big Brother...

But wouldn't it be a good thing if an organisation could accurately predict when say a Call Centre workers stress was rising and they were likely to need a break rather than ranting at a customer by monitoring their blood pressure, pulse or whatever? Or similarly in a factory setting?

Monitoring an employees health "may" within appropriate guidance be the logical manifestation of wellness - making it real and practical rather than simply conceptual

So some concerns but also some real benefits....

Agree Keith, but to take it further I'd like to see more enabling of employees to actually have the freedom to take themselves off and cool down/de-stress etc. Whereas the current climate, especially in areas such as call centres, is to monitor behaviour and punish when standards slip, and little flexibility to behave like a human being to avoid such slippage, I would like to see employers give more freedom or provide more facilities to reduce such issues arising in the first place. And when they do arise having a culture that it is ok to self-intervene before it gets too bad. So John Smith was getting stressed and instead of waiting to be told to take a break, he takes himself off for 10 minutes, cools down and then returns to work. Sure, we lost 10 minutes of productivity, except we didn't because at this point he wasn't going to be productive anyway and may have even caused more harm than good.

Yes, you will get some employees who abuse that trust and freedom but they will generally be the poor performers who can be managed out (and probably would be poor under a more regimented culture anyway). What it might just do though, is help retain the good people who look around at similar jobs elsewhere only to see more draconian measures in place that will seem old fashioned and unpleasant compared to what they are used to.

Maybe it's Friday afternoon and I am being a bit Utopian in my thinking but I just don't believe militant operational style control of staff in e.g. call centres, warehouses, etc. where you dehumanise them to an extent, is the most effective way - for either side!

But you don't have to see it as dehumanising - potentially exactly the opposite. Its simply using tools and techniques that weren't available 100 or even 10 years ago to allow the employee to operate in a far better way and to enjoy their job and perform better.

Giving both the employer and the employer access to and understanding of information about how they are really reacting and responding to the stimulus of the day may be in everyone's interests. Its a new but potentially really useful part of the tool kit in managing people more intelligently and better rather than relying on a model that hasn't changed much in many generations.

Sorry Keith I wasn't referring to that, more so the existing methods of control many of these places exert, i.e. hard to hit targets, prescribed break times, little flexibility around the times, little sympathy or understanding of mental health issues etc. where people (often being paid minimum wage) are treated like robots.

I agree it would be better for the employer to be able to say 'hey John you are getting stressed, go take a break!' but even better if John felt empowered to be able to do it for himself when he needs to and not be told.

Sorry Keith I wasn't referring to that, more so the existing methods of control many of these places exert, i.e. hard to hit targets, prescribed break times, little flexibility around the times, little sympathy or understanding of mental health issues etc. where people (often being paid minimum wage) are treated like robots.

I agree it would be better for the employer to be able to say 'hey John you are getting stressed, go take a break!' but even better if John felt empowered to be able to do it for himself when he needs to and not be told.