Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2010. Its product description, market reach and references to Messenger, Facebook and Twitter at work reflect that time.
From the United States comes a piece of software that can collect data on one or several employees to measure their real productivity. Besides being a very profitable business for its creator, WorkMeter is a computer program that is installed on a computer or on the company’s server and analyses how much of an employee’s time has been productive.
This tool is unique in the world and is highly rated by large American companies that have already tried it. The program will help business owners decide whether they need to take on more staff or whether their current workforce can meet its targets.
The application can detect how much time an employee spends on the computer, which programs they use and how much of that time has actually been productive for the company. If, for example, an employee needs Excel for a particular task and has only used it for two hours during the working day, the program will conclude that the employee hasn’t been productive.
And watch out: keeping programs open won’t help, because WorkMeter automatically detects not how long a program stays open, but how long you actually work in it.
The idea for the program came about as a way to help the recruitment department and management decide when to promote an employee.
But that’s not all, because the program doesn’t just collect data. It can also make decisions based on very objective criteria.
It’s a very useful tool for business owners and a death sentence for many employees, because the days of using Messenger, Facebook and Twitter for personal, unproductive matters are over.
The program has already drawn its first criticism for violating employees’ right to privacy, but business owners have defended themselves by arguing that the program doesn’t watch their staff, it measures their performance, and that is within the law. So it will soon be installed in many companies across the Spanish-speaking world.
Oh, I almost forgot: don’t bother trying to find out whether it’s installed on your work computer, because it can be installed without leaving any trace.
As we’ve discussed before, new technologies, for better or worse, will be part of the future of business, and companies are certainly looking for new ideas to make their business more profitable.
Further reading
- How to run a business in times of crisis
- What a business owner looks for in an executive
- Teleworking as a way to improve performance
- Facing the crisis with a positive mental attitude
Featured image: Ian Lamont, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
