Dive Brief:
- A Boston company has made headlines by introducing new employee ID badges that can track employee voice and movements to provide better performance review data, according to the Washington Post.
- Managers cannot see individual data on employees, only aggregate (and it can't track employees into the bathroom, either), but "biometrics meets the boss," as the Post coins it, is considered to be one of the next big things in employee management — at least according to leaders at Humanyze, who created the badges.
- Employers mentioned in the article note that the badges could be used to boost performance, compliance, and pick out top performers to improve their performance management programs. Humanyze also uses the data they gather to inform other companies in similar industries what high-performers do differently.
Dive Insight:
While employees would be allowed to opt out of such a program — and Humanyze emphasizes aggregate information over individual responses — an employer would likely need a strong reason to convince employees to opt-in to such a program, if used extensively. In some cases, such a program could be used to establish how high-performers do their work differently in order to create robust learning programs.
However, wearables that track employee behavior and activity already exist in the workplace in a simple form: Fitbits. Wellness trackers have largely been accepted by employees, paving the way for trackers in other forms of employee management. Similar to wellness trackers, these performance trackers allow employees to see their own data ot make judgments for themselves as well.
