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Answer & Explanation:A few years ago when Bank of America Corp.docx
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A few years ago when Bank of America Corp. wanted to study whether face time
mattered among its call-center teams, the big bank asked about 90 workers to wear
badges for a few weeks with tiny sensors to record their movements and the tone of
their conversations. The data showed that the most productive workers belonged to
close-knit teams and spoke frequently with their colleagues. So, to get more employees
mingling, the bank scheduled workers for group breaks, rather than solo ones.
Productivity rose by at least 10%, says former Bank of America human-resources
executive Michael Arena, who helped conduct its study. As Big Data becomes a fixture
of office life, companies are turning to tracking devices to gather real-time information
on how teams of employees work and interact. Sensors, worn on lanyards or placed on
office furniture, record how often staffers get up from their desks, consult other teams
and hold meetings. Businesses say the data offer otherwise hard-to-glean insights about
how workers do their jobs, and are using the information to make changes large and
small, ranging from the timing of coffee breaks to how work groups are composed, to
spur collaboration and productivity. “Surveys measure a point in time—what’s
happening right now with my emotions. [Sensors] mea-sure actual behavior in an
objective way,” says Mr. Arena. But there’s a fine line between Big Data and Big Brother,
at least in the eyes of some employees, who might shudder at the idea of the boss
tracking their every move. Sensor proponents, however, argue that smartphones and
corporate ID badges already can transmit their owner’s location. In many cases, workers
can opt out of participating in the sensor studies. “Gathering big data about human
behaviors can be a sensitive topic,” says Dave Lathrop, director of workspace futures and
strategy at Steelcase Inc., which has used sensor data with its own employees and is
developing sensor products for businesses. Along with addressing privacy concerns,
companies must also be ready to make sense of the data, managers say. Last year,
Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. did a sensor study of 30 sales and marketing employees at
its Lexington, Mass., offices to learn about interactions between team members and
various departments, says Eric Kimble, a Cubist executive. For four weeks, company
employees wore iPhone-size badges, sup-plied by Boston startup Sociometric Solutions
Inc. that collected data on their motions, whereabouts, voice levels and conversational
patterns. The information was merged with email-traffic data, along with the results of
weekly surveys in which employees rated how energetic and productive they felt. Like
Bank of America, Cubist discovered a correlation between higher productivity and faceto-face interactions. It found that social activity dropped off significantly during lunch
time, as many employees retreated to their desks to check emails, rather than chat-ting
with one another. In response, the company decided to make its once-dingy cafeteria
more inviting, improving the lighting and offering bet-ter food, to encourage workers to
lunch together, instead of at their desks. Cubist also scaled back to a lone coffee station
and water cooler for the sales and marketing group, forcing employees to huddle and
mix. It set a 3 p.m. daily coffee break, both to prop up sagging energy levels and to
boost social interactions. In such studies, Sociometric Solutions and its clients say,
workers typically get a report on their group’s overall interactions, with no names
attached, though individuals get to see their own data. Ben Waber, chief executive of
Sociometric Solutions, which he based on his doctoral research at Massachusetts
Institute of Tech-nology, says a handful of managers have wanted to see the data on an
individual employee, but that his clients must sign contracts and consent forms
prohibiting them from doing so. Individual data can be revealing, however: Dr. Waber
says he can divine from a worker’s patterns of movement whether that employee is
likely to leave the company, or score a promotion. Ben Lin, an analyst at Cub-ist, says he
didn’t find the badges creepy once his bosses explained how the data would be used.
His own report showed he changed his tone and gestures based on his conversation
partner. “Subconsciously, you mirror who you are talking to,” he says. Rather than radical
changes, sensor studies often show that simple tweaks can improve operations. Dr.
Waber says his work with one client, a tech company, revealed that the size of a lunch
table matters. Workers who ate at 12-person tables were more productive and
collaborative than those who dined at tables with four seats. Data collected from
sensors showed the larger lunch groups had more social interactions with teams across
the company. About 90% of workers at the 50 large and medium-size organizations
that have done sensor studies with Dr. Waber’s firm agree to don the badges, which are
intended to be worn the entire workday. (Bathroom breaks are optional.) Those who opt
out can wear a dummy badge, which appears identical but doesn’t record or transmit
data, he says. Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, an employee
advocacy group, says current sensing technologies don’t seem to violate employment
laws. “It’s not illegal to track your own employees inside your own build-ing,” he says,
adding that the data could be helpful in improving firm and worker performance. But he
cautions that employ-ers are likely to want data on indi-vidual workers. “Not many
service providers are going to refuse to give information to an employer that’s paying
the bill,” says Mr. Maltby. “It would be very surpris-ing if some provider doesn’t start
giving employers data about indi-vidual employees when they ask for it. That’s not
illegal. But do you really want your employers following around what you are doing? It’s
a creepy way to work.” Sensors also can reveal how workers use office space. KimberlyClark Corp. employees frequently griped that the consumer-product company’s Neenah,
Wis., offices were short on meeting space. Kimberly-Clark placed space-usage sensors
offered by furniture maker Herman Miller Inc. beneath chairs and in conference rooms.
It found that groups of three to four employees were gathering in meeting rooms
designed for much larger numbers, says Mike Dietzen, a facilities planner. As a result,
the company carved out more and smaller conference spaces designed for small groups.
Space-availability complaints have gone down significantly since, Mr. Dietzen says.
Putting badges on workers is just the beginning of a broader trend, researchers say. As
companies rethink their offices, many are look-ing into “smart buildings,” wired with
technologies that show workers’ location in real time and suggest meetings with
colleagues nearby. Philip Ross, CEO of workplace consulting firm UnWork.com, says
these features will encourage “engineered serendipity.” To be sure, companies lured by
the promise of fine-grained data on their workforces must figure out what to do with it.
Chuck Kelly, a senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle, relied on space-use sensors
this past fall to see how workers used the property-management firm’s downtown
Chicago workspace. “We wanted to see if the perception of how they were using their
space matched up to the reality of how they are using their space,” he says. The project
generated a slew of graphs and spreadsheets, but about three months later, Mr. Kelly is
still trying to extract relevant insights from the noise. It’s been a challenge, he says,
“getting your head around all that data and what it means.”
Questions
1. What ethical issues are involved in the use of tracking sensors?
2. How might the use of tracking sensors help organizations to use groups and teams to
enhance motivation and performance?
3. How might the use of tracking sensors help organizations to use groups to increase
innovation?
4. How might members of different types of groups and teams react to the use of
tracking sensors in organizations?
Source: R. E. Silverman, “Tracking Sensors Invade the Workplace,” The Wall Street
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