We see managers drawing on new kinds of data, including wearable devices and biometrics like eye trackers that very finely measure workers’ movements and what they’re paying attention to. Managers are relying more on digital tools to keep an eye on what those workers are doing. We also see more blurring of what counts as a workplace, especially as more people find themselves working from home or in hybrid arrangements post-pandemic. An example is long-haul trucking, the primary focus of Data Driven. For example, we see surveillance entering new kinds of workplaces that previously were able to escape it.
As new monitoring technologies, often supported by AI, enter the workplace, there are some important shifts happening. When we think about the future of work, we have to keep in mind that some of this is part of a much longer history.īut there are also some things that are changing. This phenomenon is called skill-biased technological change. We also know that new workplace technologies tend to disproportionately harm workers who are at the lower end of the spectrum socioeconomically and they deepen wage inequality. This has been the case basically since the advent of contemporary industry, and firms have done so in the name of goals like efficiency, productivity, and profit. The idea that firms want to closely observe and measure what workers are doing isn’t really new. Managers have tried to keep a close eye on workers ever since managers have existed. It’s common these days to hear people talk about the “future of work”-but the future of work is in many ways not entirely different from work’s past or present. Surveillance in the workplace has deep roots-but it’s also changing in important ways. Listen to the audio version-read by Karen herself-in the Next Big Idea App. She studies the social, legal, and ethical consequences of data-intensive technologies.īelow, Karen shares 5 key insights from her new book, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology and the New Workplace Surveillance. Karen Levy is a sociologist, lawyer, and associate professor of information science at Cornell University.
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