Leon Sayers (Unisys)
Australians working from home have balked at the idea of mangers monitoring their daily activities using surveillance and so-called 'tattle ware’ technology.
According to the Unisys Security Index, the majority of employees surveyed in Australia are against employer monitoring protocols, whether these are for security or productivity purposes.
The report, now in its fifteenth year, claimed 85 per cent of employees don’t want to share passwords or allow an organisation access to their microphone.
Meanwhile, 81 per cent disagreed with keyboard activity level monitoring and two-thirds said they were uncomfortable with login/logout monitoring.
Three-quarters rejected mandates to turn on video for meetings. Yet at the same time, almost half of respondents in Australia admitted to installing unauthorised software on their device even knowing that this could potentially compromise their devices.
"Here we hit a paradox: working from home has empowered employees, potentially to make decisions that could be dangerous to the business," Unisys’ report said. "Yet, these same employees resist the kind of continuous monitoring that would help detect and potentially thwart attacks before they could cause significant damage."
Unisys, which is attempting to boost its footing in services and security, rated the security concerns of Australians at 159 out of 300, the average out the 11 countries reported by Unisys.
"While for many people working from home offers benefits of less commuting time and work-life balance, for others it is an imposition necessitated by the COVID-19 response," Leon Sayers, director of advisory at Unisys in Asia Pacific, said. "Being mandated to work from home is not the same as volunteering for it.
"A two-way discussion is critical to successful organisational change management. And just because the technology allows you to do something doesn’t mean it is always appropriate.”
He added that managers need to take a different approach to monitoring performance and productivity, starting with the type of role. Employers had to decide what was more critical, the input – time spent on a task – or the output – the deliverable.
"For example, using technology to monitor how quickly call centre staff working from home answer a call and resolve a customer’s problem is a key metric of the role and service delivered to the customer," Sayers said.
