In the US, companies try to discover simulations during teleworking

The bank Wells Fargo recently fired a dozen employees in the United States for “simulating activity on the computer keyboard,” an example of the willingness of some productivity-obsessed companies to discover traps in the era of teleworking.

Some firms even pursue techniques that allow simulating that work is being done and use sophisticated “tattleware” instruments or surveillance software to do so.

These tools, whose demand has exploded since the pandemic, are installed on company computers and control the productivity of employees, by monitoring their workplace, keyboard activity, or even through GPS location.

A Florida-based marketing company would have installed a program on its computers that takes screenshots every 10 minutes to monitor the activity of its workers, according to the Harvard Business Review magazine.

Some employees, who seek to avoid these telltale devices, resort to other tools, which simulate, for example, the movement of the mouse and prevent the computer from waking up. The objective: to appear active in the eyes of their bosses even though they may be, for example, involved in matters not linked to their work.

– A technological arm wrestling –

Tutorials on TikTok or YouTube teach how to appear artificially active, thanks, for example, to fake PowerPoint presentations useful for “when you need to take a nap.”

“Just click on +Slideshow+ and everything will work,” says Sho Dewan, an influencer who introduces himself as a “former (personnel) recruiter who shares the secrets of HR”, human resources, in a TikTok video that has several million views. downloads.

Another clue frequently shared in these tutorials: open a writing program and place an object that presses a key. The page fills with the same character thousands of times, but the employee appears active.

However, the most popular instrument is the one that allows you to move the mouse and which can be purchased for a few dozen dollars.

“Press the button when you get up from the desk and the cursor will move randomly across the screen, for hours if necessary,” enthuses one user in a comment about the product on Amazon.

The risk of being discovered is, in any case, significant.

In a post on the social network Reddit, an employee says that he was fired when his coordinator discovered that he was using a computer mouse movement simulator.

Noting that he used software to simulate this movement, some Internet users suggest in the comments to appeal to a physical, material object that moves the mouse and is “undetectable.”

– The cat and the Mouse –

Some human resources professionals consider that this game of cat and mouse led to the multiplication of the “staging of productivity,” which leads the employee to even theatrically fake their activity.

With the Covid-19 pandemic and consequently the development of remote work, is the measurement of time spent in front of a screen and the number of mouse clicks really an effective instrument to judge productivity?

In a survey cited by the Harvard Business Review, some companies highlight that secretly monitoring their employees can be a dangerous boomerang for employers.

“We discovered that monitored employees are much more likely to take breaks without consulting, damage property in the office, steal materials and work deliberately slowly” than those who are not subjected to this type of practice, the magazine notes.

For AJ Mizes, director of a labor consulting company, the use of activity simulators demonstrates the existence of a “work culture focused much more on performance indicators than on constructive productivity and human relations.”

“Instead of stimulating innovation and trust, this surveillance approach will only push employees to find new ways to appear busy,” this executive told AFP, criticizing a “worrying trend toward excessive surveillance.” .

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