Watching your workforce? Watch out
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Hello and welcome to Working It, the FT’s weekly guide to the workplace and leadership.
I am back from a swimming holiday in Crete 🏊♀️. It was well outside my comfort zone, but I got through; the group averaged 3km of daily coastal swims. Plus, I spent time (in and out of the water) with a dear friend.
It was useful to take part in an activity where I had much to learn from fellow swimmers. Incremental learning is vital as an adult, specifically doing new things, and making mistakes. Swimming may be an old skill for me — but, like many older swimmers, my technique needs a 21st-century overhaul. (I’ve since enjoyed this article from Modern Elder Academy on how learning can create valuable “neuroplasticity” in adulthood.)
Read on for news of possible big changes for employers who monitor staff productivity (logging keystrokes, emails and more 👀) — and in AI Clinic, we advise someone racing ahead of their peers on AI adoption.
Are you watching your staff? Watch out 🕵
Most employers use technology to monitor and manage staff — including HR and performance data, but also the productivity surveillance technology that has been increasingly present in workplaces, especially since remote work took off during the pandemic 👨🏽💻. This includes practices such as keystroke and email monitoring and productivity tools that log how long people spend working.
Last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found that one in three employers was monitoring staff digital activity, up from one in five employers three years ago.
Against this backdrop of rising surveillance, plus the increasing use of AI and digital records to manage staff internally, the UK government is currently running an open consultation on workplace monitoring technologies. It closes on September 30, so now is a good time to work out how your company might be affected. So far, this consultation has gone “under the radar” for many employers. Lawyers are trying to get the word out 📣. Stephen Chegwin, an employment and labour partner at Eversheds Sutherland, says: “If implemented, it has some serious ramifications.”
The foreword to the 68-page workplace monitoring technologies (WMT) consultation says “the pace of [digital] change raises important questions about trust, fairness and transparency”. Stephen explains that this consultation “has its roots in Labour's ‘Make Work Pay’ [agenda], which set out that the introduction of surveillance technologies in the workplace should be subject to consultation and negotiation with trade unions or elected staff representatives.”
Stephen outlines two possible outcomes of the consultation as part of the government’s emphasis on fairness and consultation in workplaces: “The lighter-touch approach is a statutory code of practice.” This would allow employment tribunals to take the code into account, where relevant, “with the power to adjust compensation by up to 25 per cent if an employer unreasonably failed to follow it”.
The more significant outcome, he says, would be a “legislative duty to consult and negotiate with trade unions or elected staff representatives before introducing WMT”. At minimum, “this would create new procedural obligations on employers akin to the existing collective redundancy obligations, potentially slowing technology adoption and adding cost and complexity”. The consultation also floats the possibility of trade unions and worker representatives being granted “a right of veto” over WMT adoption, “which is a power that does not currently exist in UK legislation”.
There’s a cyber security aspect to this consultation, says Paula Barrett, Evershed Sutherland’s co-lead of global cyber security and data privacy: “The consultation is not only an employment law issue. The definition of WMT is broad enough to capture security, cyber resilience, AI and operational technologies that incidentally process worker data.”
One big problem, Paula notes, is that many workplace cyber security tools, access control systems, and monitoring technologies also collect worker data incidentally as part of their security function 🔐. If companies have to consult workers or their representatives about the design and operation of those systems, or disclose detailed information about how they work, it could, she says, “actually undermine the security those systems are designed to provide. This is a significant concern that the consultation does not adequately address.”
There’s a lot more to digest. Stephen suggests employers should respond to the consultation, as it’s a chance to shape policy. It would also be useful to audit what digital monitoring tools are currently used, as well as “understanding what worker data is being collected and for what purposes, and thinking about how they would demonstrate transparency and proportionality if required to do so”.
*Note: the WMT consultation applies to England, Wales and Scotland — not Northern Ireland, where employment law is devolved.
- In a nutshell: UK employers may soon be required to consult with workers or their unions about how workplace monitoring takes place and about any data that is collected. Get ahead by auditing what’s in place at the moment.
In a nutshell: UK employers may soon be required to consult with workers or their unions about how workplace monitoring takes place and about any data that is collected. Get ahead by auditing what’s in place at the moment.
- Want more? The Information Commissioner’s Office existing guidance on data protection and monitoring workers. And law firms A&O Shearman and Browne Jacobson have produced useful potted guides to the WMT consultation.
Want more? The Information Commissioner’s Office existing guidance on data protection and monitoring workers. And law firms A&O Shearman and Browne Jacobson have produced useful potted guides to the WMT consultation.
AI Clinic 🩺
The problem: Staff in our non-profit organisation are being encouraged to build AI use into our workflow. Most of this work is around drafting and summarising. I would love to be more ambitious — for example, using agents to grab stats from across databases and collate reports.
I use my spare time to learn about AI but have been told to go slow as my colleagues are nowhere near my level; many don’t know how to use AI, or object to its energy use and refuse to adopt it. How can I advance my learning and deployment of AI? Or should I just wait and see?
The solution: As you have discovered, AI rollout is, at heart, a people issue. If teams aren’t ready — or are actively resistant — nothing is going to be rolled out except a lot of wasted cash 💰. Your uncomfortable position is a familiar one to Victoria Ferrier, chief executive of Wild Learning Sciences, a research and advisory body for the “human infrastructure” that underpins everything in organisations. In your case, leaders are keen for staff to use AI, but are not building the human capability to do that.
Victoria points out that your situation isn’t a binary, “go fast or wait”. She characterises it differently: “It's the gap between your adoption and the organisation’s absorption. Adoption is uptake: using the tools, being fluent. Absorption is different — does the organisation have the capacity to act on what those tools produce? A tool doesn't fix the quality of what you put in, or what anyone does with the output. Employees can be highly adopted, and the organisation still absorbs nothing.” That’s a nuanced point, and one that I haven’t seen discussed 🤔.
Beyond that, Victoria points out that “your colleagues aren’t simply lagging. Beyond energy there is water, land and bills — their objections are reasonable, and ‘let’s create agents’ could read as a threat to their jobs.”
Your best next step, she thinks, is to find opportunity in the fact that few organisations (including yours, it seems) are thinking seriously about AI safety and governance — this is your chance to make a difference and become a leader internally. The first questions to ask, Victoria says, of any tool your organisation adopts, are: who can stop it, who is accountable when it fails and who is watching? “Answer that and you become the person shaping how AI gets used — a different kind of agent entirely, and a more durable role than being the fastest adopter.”
Got a question, dilemma or tip about AI in the workplace that we could feature in AI Clinic? Email: [email protected].
Five top stories from the world of work
- The union shock coming for UK employers: New legislation as part of the Employment Rights Act comes into force in October, meaning unions will gain a new statutory right to access workplaces with 21 or more employees. Madeleine Wright talks to employers and unions.
- Nik Storonsky’s plan for Revolut: a global bank with ‘effectively zero risk’: Patrick Jenkins begins his series of weekly business interviews by talking to the founder and chief executive of Revolut, Europe’s largest start-up.
- Are we developing a distaste for effort? Sarah O’Connor writes on the rising numbers of young people who say they give up easily or give hasty answers to difficult problems. Have LLMs stopped us from trying hard?
- Equal pay law cannot ignore the labour market: A recent ruling overturned a previous tribunal decision, meaning that Next, the retailer, is allowed to pay warehouse staff and retail staff different wages, even though the work is of equal value. John Gapper examines the implications.
- Can our children still prosper in the age of AI? In her review of Daniel Susskind’s book, What Should My Children Do? Camilla Cavendish examines its argument that using AI effectively is now a core skill for children.
The union shock coming for UK employers: New legislation as part of the Employment Rights Act comes into force in October, meaning unions will gain a new statutory right to access workplaces with 21 or more employees. Madeleine Wright talks to employers and unions.
Nik Storonsky’s plan for Revolut: a global bank with ‘effectively zero risk’: Patrick Jenkins begins his series of weekly business interviews by talking to the founder and chief executive of Revolut, Europe’s largest start-up.
Are we developing a distaste for effort? Sarah O’Connor writes on the rising numbers of young people who say they give up easily or give hasty answers to difficult problems. Have LLMs stopped us from trying hard?
Equal pay law cannot ignore the labour market: A recent ruling overturned a previous tribunal decision, meaning that Next, the retailer, is allowed to pay warehouse staff and retail staff different wages, even though the work is of equal value. John Gapper examines the implications.
Can our children still prosper in the age of AI? In her review of Daniel Susskind’s book, What Should My Children Do? Camilla Cavendish examines its argument that using AI effectively is now a core skill for children.
One more thing . . .
I am recommending a book I haven’t yet finished, but I am confident of its brilliance: The Great Dictator by Matthew Sweet is a biography of Barbara Cartland (1901-2000), the British romance novelist whose productivity would put any modern “knowledge worker” to shame: 723 books, over a career lasting more than 70 years — and all written, as Matthew’s title cleverly references, without the author touching a typewriter or keyboard. I’m still in the 1920s and Barbara’s life is more extraordinary and compelling than any novel I’ve read this year. Plus, Matthew’s writing is very funny. It’s a joy to read 💐.
A word from the Working It community ✍🏻
As students head back to university this month 🎓, and new graduates look for jobs, we had this timely email from Paul Davis, head of economic crime at Barclays, in response to our recent newsletter on recruitment scams. He says:
“Our research shows three in five Gen Zs have looked for work in the last year, applying for 34 roles each on average, meanwhile four in five are facing some form of financial pressure — which might explain why three quarters feel pressure to respond quickly to job ads, to avoid missing out.”
“Our research shows three in five Gen Zs have looked for work in the last year, applying for 34 roles each on average, meanwhile four in five are facing some form of financial pressure — which might explain why three quarters feel pressure to respond quickly to job ads, to avoid missing out.”
That urgency, Paul notes, is a red flag 🚩: “It’s always worth taking time to find the vacancy on the employer’s official website.” His other tips include avoiding sharing identity documents early on in the recruitment process. “If you suspect you’ve been scammed: stop, report it, and if necessary, contact your bank.”
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