Scientists develop a system to track and monitor employee performance

It is a well-known fact that employee performance is directly related to the success or failure of an enterprise. More the number of high performing workers, greater is the turnover for the company. Employers from numerous industries have long since tried various techniques to monitor the performance of their employees and find out who the best is. Researchers from Dartmouth University have now developed a new technique, called mobile-sensing system to track and monitor employee performance. It involves a smartphone, a mobile application, and a fitness bracelet.

The smartphone would track physical activity, phone usage during working hours, surrounding light, as well as location. The fitness tracker would be used to monitor vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns, weight and so on. Additionally, location sensors placed at strategic locations in the office would provide information about time away from one’s desk. All this data would later be processed by a machine learning powered algorithm to give an overall indication of the performance of employees. It can be used to determine which employees are hard-working and which ones are not.

Although this technique sounds innovative, it does carry the possibility of employers infringing upon the privacy of employees. Moreover, such constant monitoring could also give way to micromanagement, something which is universally loathed by employees working in every industry. But the researchers insist that this method could enable corporations to identify high performers and come up with unique programs for employee benefits that could bolster productivity.