The director of the Parkland Regional Library in Lacombe, Alberta, had some doubts about the productivity of one particular employee. Being the progressive manager that she is, she decided to assess the worker’s productivity by installing keystroke logging software.
This application does just what its name suggests: It records an employee’s every keystroke so it can be reviewed later by Big Br…er…the employee’s manager.
The employee found out and filed a complaint with the province’s information and privacy commissioner, who ruled that the action violated the Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy Act. The Globe and Mail has the story.
The library director is miffed by the ruling. She claims that it’s hard to measure the productivity for the kind of job this employee performed, and “We thought that using an objective check through the computer would be the most fair and objective way to do that.” Now she fears the ruling has removed an objective means of measuring performance from employers’ arsenal. If this blog were focused on Human Resources, I would rail at length about the ineptness of a manager unable to establish performance measures upfront and then assess the worker’s productivity based on an assessment of performance against those measures. But this is a communications blog, so I’ll stick to my knitting and just note that keystroke logging is another in a long list of engagement killers.
Regular readers can stop here. You’ve heard this rant before.
Engagement is a goal most executives want their employee populations to achieve. Highly engaged workforces, research shows, produce double-digit growth for their employers. Engaged employees are passionate about their work. They want to go the extra mile to meet goals. They want to pull other employees along. A variety of factors play into commitment. Trust is one of the most important. So what does it say to employees who know the company has no problem with secretly recording every key they tap on their computer keyboards? “I’ve done nothing wrong, I work hard, I produce results, but they don’t trust me.” That will build a passionate, committed, engaged workforce. Even considering only one employee who was suspected of slacking (it was never proved), other employees know it could happen to them. In fact, they have no way of knowing their keystrokes aren’t being logged right now.
So maybe the Parkland Regional Library director has lost the only tool she’s clever enough to use to assess her staff’s productivity. On the other hand, there’s now a glimmer of hope that her staff can begin to build a sense of trust. While it’s too bad that it took government action to open that possibility, I’m still applauding Alberta for its decision.
Thanks to Slashdot for the pointer.
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.
