US companies fight against labor simulators
In the pandemic, companies in the USA have significantly increased control over their employees and employees' work hours to avoid being simulated. In return, employees simulate their productivity to avoid being monitored. This leads to an absurd productivity theater.
Mouse movements, keyboard clicks, presentations - but the employee is not sitting at the computer, instead, they are taking a nap or hanging laundry. In the USA, companies are increasingly dealing with the phenomenon that employees in home offices simulate activity on their computers or other company-provided devices. Some even lost their jobs for it. The feigned diligence is, however, also the result of increased control needs of companies in times of mobile work.
Wells Fargo dismissed several dozen employees in May. The charge: "Simulated keyboard activity, giving the impression of active work." Wells Fargo does not tolerate unethical behavior, the bank declared.
Internet shops and video platforms like Tiktok and YouTube are full of devices, software solutions, and tips on how to simulate activity on the computer or on other devices provided by the company. Mostly, this is to prevent the computer from going into idle mode, activating the screensaver, or changing the status in conferences from "active" to "inactive."
Millions of Requests
There's approximately the "Mouse Jiggler": a small device where the mouse is placed. Then, the computer mouse is moved at regular intervals. Similarly popular: Opening a typing program on the computer and fixing a specific character - line by line, page by page, the screen fills up with "text" from the same character. Additionally, there are software solutions that move the mouse or press keys at regular intervals.
Or, long presentations are started and then rolled back. "Just press 'Slideshow Start' and everything is good," says the influencer Sho Dewan in a Tiktok video. He was previously responsible for personnel recruitment himself and now shares his secrets.
Such videos sometimes have millions of views. A user wrote in the comments under the clip: "Why didn't I discover this sooner?" He himself had once glued a computer mouse to an activated ventilator.
Of course, the risk is high to be caught. In a post on the network Reddit named "My boss caught me with a mouse jiggler," an employee shared his misfortune. He was furious when he was caught, after he had previously excused himself several times from meetings with "power outages" and "thunderstorms" and left silently. Some users advised him to use a physical mouse jiggler instead, which is harder to detect.
Work Culture of Surveillance
In essence, employers must face up to the fact that they have significantly increased monitoring of their employees according to several US studies in the context of home office and mobile work. For example, the demand for desktop monitoring software, keyboard logging software, and even GPS tracking of employees has increased significantly since the pandemic. According to Harvard Business Review, a Florida-based company installed a software on the computers of its employees that takes a screenshot every ten minutes.
The monitoring, according to human resources specialists in some companies, led to a true "productivity theater," where employees pretended to be productive. The cat-and-mouse game also raises the question of how sensible the monitoring of mouse and keyboard is, to measure the productivity and effectiveness of employees.
Moreover, things can also go wrong in reverse: According to a survey by the magazine "Harvard Business Review," monitored employees tended to take unauthorized breaks and disregard instructions more frequently. In addition, they damaged company property more often, stole office supplies, and worked intentionally slowly, according to the report.
A.J. Mizes, CEO of the consulting firm Human Reach, lamented the result of a culture that was more quantitative than "human relationships and true productivity." The trend towards excessive monitoring in the US economy is alarming, he said. "Instead of fostering innovation and trust, it will only make employees find more ways to be occupied."
In response to the increasing use of monitoring software and GPS tracking by employers in the USA during home office work, Wells Fargo also noticed simulated activity among some of its employees. They dismissed several employees for "simulated keyboard activity, giving the impression of active work."
Additionally, the popularity of online tutorials and tips on simulating computer activity has soared, with devices like the "Mouse Jiggler" and software solutions that move the mouse or press keys at regular intervals being widely used to avoid idle modes and screen savers.
