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US bank Wells Fargo said this month that it had fired more than a dozen employees after an internal investigation found that employees were simulating keyboard activity to create the impression of “active work”.
It is unclear what exactly these workers were doing. But since the pandemic moved office work to homes, sales of so-called mouse jigglers and other devices meant to emulate work have increased.
Part of this is because some large companies use their own technological tools to monitor employee work, such as tracking keyboard clicks and website searches.
These devices are often used in workplaces where there is little trust between bosses and their employees and a tendency to think that only things that can be measured can be managed. Strict monitoring of staff only encourages them to game the system.
But there are broader questions that still need to be asked about workplace etiquette outside the office. For example, should staff take legally sensitive calls from a coworking space? How about taking a team call hands-free while driving to the post office? Would your employer be liable if there was an accident? Another question is whether employers should worry not only about staff productivity but also their ability to disconnect.
British property company Aster Group commissioned a study to understand how employees felt about hybrid working. She discovered that while her staff liked doing administrative tasks during the workday, they felt infinitely torn between their home and work responsibilities. The pressure often caused workers to feel overwhelmed, distracted, and exhausted.
“People are trying to ‘do it all’ due to the absence of socially embedded boundaries,” said the authors of the research from BiBO Studio, a consultancy that designs sustainable places. “Switching between activities comes at a cost: multitasking may seem efficient, but it actually disrupts our ‘flow’, means we pay less attention to the task at hand, are less productive, more distracted and not in full control. “
Academics now suggest that managers intervene to help employees manage the cadence of their work-from-home day. “If people use their break to go to school, are they really taking a break?” said Harriet Shortt, associate professor of organizational studies at Bristol Business School, who led the work for BiBO.
She suggests that managers should encourage their teams to think about how they can appropriately separate work and personal responsibilities to avoid getting derailed or distracted, or resenting their living rooms becoming office spaces. “Perhaps managers can think about how to encourage employees to record their behavior so they can change the way they work,” she adds. The hope is that if staff write down exactly what they are doing and when, they will be better able to self-regulate and managers will be able to intervene when necessary.
Aster said his motive was to improve the well-being of his employees. Others might suggest that asking what household tasks take up your workday is a type of surveillance. If a manager suggested when staff could do laundry or shop for groceries on a weekly basis, he would undoubtedly face accusations of going overboard.
In any case, how many employees would be truly honest in any disclosure? More importantly, would bosses – many of whom already have expanded roles and increasingly manage the mental wellbeing of staff – be willing to add more to their plate?
The latest news from Wells Fargo will have triggered managers who already feared that staff working from home were slack. And there are times when managers need to intervene, for example if they believe staff are “on a quiet vacation,” or taking time off without telling their boss.
But employees are most likely to make the most of the “in-between moments” of the workday while doing their jobs.
Most companies have been clear about basic remote work guidelines, setting out expected work hours; how staff should collaborate, communicate or record their decision making; how they should store data and what their legal rights are if they decide to work from home.
But with hybrid work here to stay, it’s increasingly likely that managers will need to become more involved in their employees’ personal lives, voluntarily or involuntarily.