Skipping the office meeting? – Microsoft develops software to monitor the employee habits!

Skipping your office meetings? – beware Microsoft is developing a software that monitors the employee behavior . The software doesn’t stop there in only monitoring meeting halls, but also monitors each and every activity of an employee.  The intention is to eliminate annoying workplace habits and improve the  productivity of employees. The behavior of an employee inside the organization, Monitoring, Analysis and prepare scorecards based on their habits.

Ending the conference call early, late to the meetings, telephonic conversation and other communication related behaviors are the metrics that are to be targeted in the monitoring software. Initially Microsoft planned to develop a software to monitor its own employees, but it could be made available for any organization.

According to Microsoft,

“[In addition] to an email or voice conversation, other forms of interaction such as gestures, mannerisms, etc. in a video conference may also be analyzed and reported (e.g. nodding one’s head in agreement, shaking one’s head indicating disagreement, hand gestures, and similar ones). Additionally, patterns of communication may also be detected (in addition to distinct phrases or mannerisms).

For example, cutting off others during conversation, prolonged monologues, and comparable ones may be included in the category of behaviors to be discouraged. Similarly, a time of day, or day of week of initiating a conversation and likewise patterns may be of interest to the analysis (e.g. a supervisor calling his supervisees frequently during afterhours or at lunch time, or when they are busy may not recognize that habit until shown by the application). The patterns may also be pivoted on the relationship.

If an individual calls a direct report during lunch, it can have a stronger negative impact on the score than if they call a peer (though they both may be construed as negative and have a negative score impact)

As discussed above, scores may be computed based on phrases, as well as gestures, mannerisms, and patterns. Mannerisms may include visual cues such as wearing dark glasses in a video conference, wearing unacceptable clothing to a business meeting, and similar ones.”

 

Do you really think such monitoring software can help to improve the productivity?. Your thoughts ?