Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER August 10, 2015 6 NEWS/EMPLOYMENT LAW Employee Recognition That Works! Request a Demo www.terryberry.com/demo 800.253.0882 Get a FREE Demo and, therefore, from her employ- ment at SFU," said Gordon. Truscott indicated she intended to pursue her studies and did not say anything about working else- where at SFU. She was also told by the HR liaison that a separa- tion notice would be prepared for April 12 once her revised resigna- tion notice was submitted. In ad- dition, Truscott had to re-apply for the program assistant position she ended up taking, complete with a full background check. e collective agreement provi- sion allowing Truscott to maintain her seniority also had no bearing on other aspects of her service, as the collective agreement speci- fied the period in which a retrac- tion could be made. Truscott was aware of that limit and failed to exercise it. Her later realization that her resignation negatively affected her contractual rights was not suf- ficient to warrant disregarding the collective agreement, said Gor- don in dismissing the grievance. "(Truscott's) submission of a second, revised 'formal' notice of resignation on Feb. 22, together with her failure to retract that notice when the prospect of an- other position arose on Feb. 26, constitutes conduct carrying out her intention to resign from her employment at SFU, and con- duct that was inconsistent with remaining in the employ of SFU," said the arbitrator. For more information see: • Simon Fraser University and CUPE, Local 3338 (Truscott), Re, 2015 CarswellBC 1640 (B.C. Arb.). Jeffrey R. Smith is the editor of Ca- nadian Employment Law Today. For more information, visit www.employ- mentlawtoday.com. RESIGNATION < pg. 5 'Inconsistent' conduct Keeping a close eye on the time Employee self-monitoring software part of emerging productivity trend BY LIZ BERNIER IN the workplace of 2015, Big Brother is less of a frightening lit- erary construct and more of a day- to-day reality we hardly notice. Our emails can be monitored, our comings and goings might be captured on CCTV cameras — we may even swipe in and out of our office building, leaving behind a to-the-minute record of our quitting times. And any sketchy Googling may very well be subject to the scrutiny of our employers. But what if the only person you had to answer to was… you? In a way, that's becoming some- thing of a reality for some employ- ees as organizations implement self-monitoring software. ere are different options but the overall concept of self-moni- toring software is employees are able to track their own time and productivity. is puts the moni- toring — and responsibility — squarely on the employee's shoul- ders, said Khiv Singh, assistant vice-president of sales (Americas) and marketing at Sapience Ana- lytics in San Francisco. "We live in an environment where work life and personal life are interconnected," he said. "We are seeing a lot of time is getting spent on work and interacting with people but, at the end of the day, people still say, 'I don't know where my time went.' "We are constantly getting dis- tracted, we are unable to focus on work, and there are always notifi- cations popping up — things that are competing for our attention." People aren't able to keep tabs on why and how a five-minute activity becomes a 45-minute ac- tivity, without them even realizing it. is often leads to people feel- ing disengaged at work and that there's never enough time, said Singh. We're certainly busy, but are we actually being productive? It's difficult to say without actually measuring, which is why Sapience created a background software application for employees to self- monitor their productivity, said Singh. e desktop application runs in the background, tracking how much time people spend on tasks such as marketing or meet- ings, with minimal data input. e main idea is to make people aware of where their time is go- ing, he said. "Once it becomes visible, it's measurable. And once it becomes measurable, employees and indi- viduals can make their own deci- sions about whether this is a wise use of their time and what they can be doing to change how they spend their time — and reclaim their day." A trend is born? Employee monitoring in general has been around for a while — but self-monitoring is, perhaps, a newer twist, said Laura Fran- gella, principal at Focused HR in Toronto. "It's kind of like dieting — when you track it, then you do better on (your) diet," she said. "It's like a Fit- bit for productivity. "e premise is that they be- lieve that a tool like this helps em- ployees become more aware of how they're spending their time." On the surface, there seems to be a long list of advantages to self- monitoring capabilities — espe- cially in workplace environments where measurements and metrics have traditionally come from the management side instead of em- ployees, said Jeff Welton, manag- ing director at Verity Internation- al in Toronto. "(In those environments), hav- ing something where the individ- ual can monitor himself would be very valuable," he said. But it's important that the monitoring itself be easy — not complex, frustrating or labour-intensive. "It would have to be something very simple and it would have to be automated because I think the last thing anyone wants to do is to add yet another piece of work onto someone that takes them away from doing whatever their primary function is," said Welton. Another challenge with self- monitoring is the potential — or perceived potential — for employ- ers to sneak a peak, said Frangella. "Most of my clients have (soft- ware that is) dual — they're not completely self-monitoring. But my challenge is the organization buys the software. ey then have the ability — even if they sell it to the employees as 'at's the way it's used, we're not going to go in and invade your privacy' — really, they can probably go in and look at whatever data they want," she said. "I'm not saying all employers are going to do that, but in terms of if I was the employee... people could see it as a bit Big Brother-ish." Although it's possible such soft- ware could be used in a negative way as a surveillance tool, it really depends how the organization uses it, said Frangella. "It depends on a lot of differ- ent factors — so, for example, the culture of the organization. Are they already an organization that currently has metrics around performance and goal-setting, so this would be just another piece, versus an organization that has absolutely nothing, and then all of a sudden comes in with this? It might not be taken so well," she said. "(Used in combination) with other programs and incentives, I think it could work." HR, workforce benefits To gain the most benefit from em- ployee self-monitoring systems, employers would have to be care- ful not to create additional work or misunderstandings for employ- ees, said Welton. "e key will come down to a very simplified automated sys- tem; very clear understanding and communication of expectations relative to productivity, so that the direct boss and the employee have an open dialogue about 'Here's what we expect from you,'" he said. In some cases, employees would likely need to input some data, which may or may not pres- ent an accurate picture of their day, said Frangella. "Sometimes, the feedback I've gotten from an employee perspec- tive is that there is some (work) they can't monitor, so it would need them to input data. So, for example, they're in a meeting or they're having a discussion with someone or (it's) travelling time. I'm not sure of all the software out there that would pick that up or not pick it up, but how do you measure that?" she said. "Like any software program, it's only as good as the informa- tion that's being inputted. Can it capture the whole picture? I don't know." Giving employees more control over their schedules or planning out their work is a definite posi- tive, said Welton. "Anything you can put into the ownership of employees' hands is always good. If they have owner- ship, if they believe in it, under- stand it, buy into it, and then own it, that's a win-win," he said. "en, as a manager, you can just coach to things, as opposed to monitor things. It changes the dynamic, really." But it's important to ensure em- ployees understand the broader organizational goals and how the time they spend on day-to-day tasks can support those goals, said Frangella. "It has to be tied to the organi- zational goals and individual goals too. In other words, there has to be maybe some bigger goals to say, 'OK, this is what your job entails.' How you go about doing it, maybe the employee has control." Self-monitoring can also be very helpful for HR when it comes to hiring strategy, said Frangella. "at's where I think it would be a really great benefit because you're looking at HR planning, or analytics in terms of where everyone's spending their time. And you could actually look at data now and say, 'We're spend- ing so much time on this, so what's the result of that?' or 'We need to hire.'" With that hard data, it becomes easier to build the business case for hiring someone new or out- sourcing an area or task, she said. "But then there's the whole premise of how do you measure productivity?" said Frangella. With self-monitoring software, there is a strong focus on metrics, numbers and blocks of time, but that's not the only thing produc- tivity is about. "Sometimes, productivity is also linked to employee engage- ment... are they being developed? Are they being heard? is is just one aspect. I don't think it's the be- all, end-all," said Frangella. "Anything you can put into the ownership of employees' hands is always good."

• Cover