A few months ago you hired a promising employee, partly because of his genetic disposition toward perfect health. In fact, you've already given him a raise based on the results of the quarterly keystroke count and electronic badge tracking, which showed that he spent more than 86 percent of his average work day at his terminal and that for 92 percent of his time at the computer he was physically engaged in the act of data entry. He may even get a bonus because random phone call and e-mail monitoring revealed superior written and oral communication skills and not a trace of personal activity.
Today 40 million American workers are under surveillance at the office. Women make up 85 percent of that number, as they tend to occupy customer-service and data-entry positions, which are more commonly scrutinized. A recent survey by the American Management Association revealed that 40 percent of all major U.S. firms engage in some form of electronic monitoring of their employees, ranging from keystroke counting to phone and e-mail monitoring to full-scale hidden camera surveillance. What's going on here?
It gets easier every day to indulge your macromanagerial whims and spy on employees. Software such as WinWhatWhere Investigator records all of a user's activity, including keystrokes, the time and date of the action, the workstation, the name of the program, and the title of the activity window—all covertly. And with $100 black-and-white pinhole video cameras readily available, video surveillance is flourishing in the workplace. The Spy Store, a retail chain that also offers its wares on the Internet, claims that representatives from more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies have made purchases.
What's to stop them—ethics?
