Remote Workers Being Laid Off For Not Typing Enough?

By: Stephanie Diana Eubank

Since the pandemic employers and leaders have had to make the adjustment to having their teams operating remotely.  After over two years of suffering through the pandemic this adjustment is starting to feel par for the course now.  However, since the pandemic and more so recently I have heard several colleagues and friends have told me about being laid off or fired and the reason employers have given them was they had a low keystroke on their work computer?  Which sounded a little weird to me given that many of my colleagues and I have a lot of data both qualitative and quantitative data to review including legal docs day in and day out.  Which means that the typing quantity would of course be lower.  In working remote for over ten years now ( and no that’s not an exaggeration I am proud that I have gotten to work remote for so long prior to and preferably post COVID).

This got stranger because another one of my colleagues who was laid off for this key stroke analysis reason stated that a lot of the communications for work were being done via online systems like email, teams, skype for business and similar. However, this colleague noted that often this person would use these programs from via phone.  Others also noted that with coffee shops, and outdoor seating becoming more inviting as the weather got better, they would log in from their laptops in other locations to help themselves get out and about.  This method of being able to be mobile in remote work for those who are not accustomed to remote work this is helpful for promoting mental health and work and life balance. 

An example I can give personally I have had several trainings that I have led via Zoom from the comfort of my backyard as an effort to get outside a bit as a stress reliever.  Another personal example is walking around the house to make a snack and a cup of tea while using the text to speak function on my phone to answer emails or using my wireless headset to answer questions for team members via teams. The only comments in ten years for doing this has been, “I love how quickly you were able to help me with this”, and “Wow the weather is nice there”. 

So, colleagues contacting me saying that while they had been doing the same thing are getting backlash through their performance analytics based on keystrokes was strange and prompted me to do some additional research.  In my research on this led me down a rabbit hole of how companies are inappropriately using data analytics in remote work settings. There are a few practical research articles from business professionals in leadership talking about how to use data analytics to measure productivity and performance.   

In those articles there are several remote employee surveillance systems like EfficientLab, and even using team communications apps like Slack and Teams.  There is a really great scholarly article found online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268120301542 and referenced below a number of different data analytics to monitor or spy on employees who are working remotely. 

Based on how these productivity analysis methods are being used there is some additional steps when anglicizing productivity that leaders need to do in a remote work environment.  For starters leaders need to learn what each employee does.  That seems condescending but, it is true.  Leadership needs to practice a concept in six sigma called cross training.  Within a cross training requires all employees including leadership to learn what each employee does and works to learn each other’s duties.  This also allows employers to invest in training all employees as we all navigate the Great Resignation. 

Once a leader knows what each employee does the monitoring used needs to include a qualitative and a quantitative methodology.  Using a more informed understanding of what employees do and a proper method of evaluating productivity.  It will also help strengthen labor pools instead of diminishing them. 

References

West, D. M. (2022, March 9). How employers use technology to Surveil employees. Brookings. Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/01/05/how-employers-use-technology-to-surveil-employees/

Galanti, T., Guidetti, G., Mazzei, E., Zappalà, S., & Toscano, F. (2021). Work from home during the COVID-19 Outbreak. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 63(7). https://doi.org/10.1097/jom.0000000000002236

Miele, F., & Tirabeni, L. (2020). Digital Technologies and Power Dynamics in the organization: A conceptual review of remote working and wearable technologies at work. Sociology Compass, 14(6). https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12795

Jensen, N., Lyons, E., Chebelyon, E., Bras, R. L., & Gomes, C. (2020). Conspicuous monitoring and remote work. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 176, 489–511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.05.010