Why ‘green dot’-obsessed managers are ruining remote work

It has always been a cat-and-mouse game. Employers who can never quite find it in themselves to trust their employees to be productive, and workers who come up with increasingly elaborate ruses to give the false impression of industry. The result for many staff is that they have never been so closely monitored at work.

Factory workers have always typically been housed in large open spaces, divided only by machines or warehouse shelving. Despite many highfalutin arguments by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the biggest benefits of open-plan offices is – you guessed it – employers can cram in more staff per square metre. It saves on rent.

Workers once hid behind pot plants and pillars to avoid their boss’ roving eyes. These days, the ever-present ‘green dot’ is making it much harder.Credit: Bloomberg

And you can monitor them more easily. In January, Amazon was fined $51 million for “excessive” monitoring of its staff in its French warehouse.

Productivity can be heard in open-plan workplaces simply by listening to the level of noise from phones, the clatter of keyboards, or the sound of plant machinery doing its thing. A quick glance around the place will give you an estimate of the number of bums on seats, and jackets on the backs of chairs. Workers are in their place and all is well with the world.

Pillars and pot plants afforded office workers some cover to slack off, but came with a high risk of being busted. Then things really began to change in the 1980s and 1990s, when computers and cameras become a feature of the workplace.

Things have moved on since the 1980s. Then my mate discovered if he wanted to skive off to watch the cricket, he first popped into work and logged onto the computer system to make it appear as though he was there – a case of overs and out.

Online forums are full of tips to keep the green light shining, such as changing the settings on your PC or phone to keep it always on.

Work from home, forced upon managers during the pandemic, made bosses confront their long-held, almost philosophical, concerns that a worker who is not observed no longer exists (i.e. is not doing any work).

Luckily for them, they discovered the green dot.

A feature of many communications systems, such as Slack or Teams, is a little green dot or other graphical device that indicates you are online. God forbid that you should not be online, for commonly there will be a shaming message next to your name “last seen at 8.03” or even worse, the ultimate sin: “offline”.

It reminds me of when the teacher takes the register and enquires of the class “where is Jimmy?” and the class sneak says, “He is off at the cricket.”

Some managers are not satisfied with the dots and worry you could still be making the dashes to the cricket on company time. On video calls they insist on seeing your living, animated face, not your profile picture.

Leveraging the new social etiquette for their own control needs, managers will upbraid you for being rude not to participate with the full cruet of hair (if applicable), eyes, nose, lips, teeth (if applicable) and chin(s). It is a not-too-subtle method to ensure you are not listening to a podcast or reading a blog, during their oh-so-thrilling meeting about team building.

In this cat-and-mouse game, pillars, plot plants and ghost logins have now been replaced with mouse jigglers. A mouse jiggler is a USB device that fakes mouse movements by jiggling the position of the cursor on the screen, giving the impression to anyone monitoring that you are busy working.

Online forums are full of tips to keep the green light shining, such as changing the settings on your PC or phone to keep it always on. It is not very green, but it keeps the precious green dot alive – until the software changes to prevent this ruse.

Behind all of this nonsense are managers who continue to hold views about productivity from circa 1900. It is management with a stopwatch and clipboard dressed up in high-tech garb. It was a bad idea then and still is.

There is plenty of good evidence that workers can be just as, or more, productive working from home, or simply working without close monitoring. If the management cats back off, they might be surprised at the amount of mouse work that gets done.

Dr Jim Bright FAPS owns Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy, and is director of evidence & impact at BECOME Education. Email to [e-mail]. Follow him on Twitter @DrJimBright

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.