Employee-Tracking Data Making Case for Working Face to Face - 0 views
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In 2008, Bank of America became one of the first organizations to test electronic badges that tracked and analyzed employee behavior. The experiment, in which call-center workers agreed to be followed electronically for a month, found that groups of employees who spent time together were more productive.
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The tracking-badge technology used in the Bank of America tests, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab
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“Human social interaction is rapidly becoming more measurable at a large scale, thanks to always-on sensors like cellphones. The next challenge is to use what we learn from this behavioral data to influence or enhance how people work with each other,”
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Based on Sociometric Solutions’ finding that people who ate in larger lunch groups were more productive,
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Human resources consultant and writer Susan Heathfield of Williamston, Mich., agreed that creativity and productivity are better when employees work together on site.
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“We have found that when we put together teams of seven to 12 people and give them an assignment,” they do phenomenally and socialize more than people sitting in cubicles,
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Michael Arena, a former Bank of America executive, believes that more companies will adopt sensor technology to assess and improve performance.
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This article discusses the use of electronic badges to analyze employee behavior. Over all it found that employees that spent time together were more productive. Other options to track and analyze employee behavior are with cell phones. The use of technology in badges to track and analyze employees was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. The article discusses the next challenge is to learn from the data collected and then influence how people work together. The badges do not collect actual voice discussions of the employee. The data collected is limited to employee movement, the tone of their voice and with whom they are talking. Office design is one area that the data is being used. For example, a water cooler may be placed is a specific location to make sure certain employees come in contact with each other. Other studies have shown that employees, such as programmers, who work in groups, are 8% more efficient when collaboration on a project is needed then working remotely. Overall the general consensus of the article is that creativity and productivity are better when people work together on site.