Our 21st Century workplace is getting more instrumented, more transparent, and data driven each day according to Josh Bersin in a recent Forbes Magazine article, Qua​ntified Self: Meet the Quantified Employee.  Bersin spotlights growing evidence that employers are using tools developed by companies active in the Quantified Self movement to monitor, track, and better understand the activity of their workers.  Pointing to companies like Entelo and OrgStars (both of which mine social data and apply intelligence to figure out if employees are thinking about changing jobs) and NCR Corp (which monitors employee transactions to help reduce in-store theft), Bersin applauds the trend toward high-tech surveillance of employees, expecting it to lead to "better management, better hiring, and improved workplace conditions."  A trend that Bersin that might have overlooked in his otherwise excellent article is one in which workers are beginning to use these tools to monitor and improve their own work productivity.

 

 

More than 13 million wearable fitness tracking devices are expected to be incorporated into employee wellness programs within the next five years, according to a study from ABI Research.  In addition to helping companies reduce health-care claims, it's likely that these tools will also be used to increase productivity and help build better company cultures.  While basic QS products that measure and monitor exercise routines, calories burned and sleep patterns like the Fitbit, Jawbone Up and Samsung Gear will lead the charge in the corporate world, there’s every indication that productivity tools that take a step beyond fitness trackers such as Omnicontext Personal Analytics and RescueTime, which gather data related to the routines, web surfing habits, and communication patterns of knowledge workers, will be right behind once fitness trackers have secured a beachhead.

 

 

Employees who use this new generation of QS tools will develop self-monitoring skills, which will help them be more productive, make better decisions and communicate more effectively with co-workers and supervisors.  Because of this, it’s likely, too, that managers who have a need to control and command their subordinates will increasingly become obsolete.  With employees who successfully monitor their own progress, managers will need to develop new techniques to manage them without discouraging their initiative.  There will be less need for high-tech surveillance of employees when employees surveil themselves.