- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
Mouse shakers, power naps: Corporate America fights 'keyboard fraud'
A US banking giant fired more than a dozen employees for "simulating keyboard activity," highlighting a battle within productivity-obsessed corporate America to tame a culture of faking work with gizmos such as mouse jigglers.
The sackings by Wells Fargo come as employers use sophisticated tools -- popularly called "tattleware" or "bossware" -- on company-issued devices to monitor productivity in the age of hybrid work that took off after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some workers seek to outsmart them with tools such as mouse movers -- which simulate cursor movement, preventing their devices from going into sleep mode and making them appear active when they may actually be getting a power nap or doing laundry.
The cat-and-mouse game -- no pun intended -- has spurred a wider debate in corporate America about whether screentime and the click-clacking of keyboards are effective yardsticks to measure productivity amid a boom in remote work.
The Well Fargo workers were dismissed last month following a probe of allegations involving "simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work," Bloomberg reported, citing the company's disclosures to financial regulators.
Wells Fargo "holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior," the company said in a statement, without elaborating.
- 'Productivity theater' -
Multiple US surveys show that demand for employee monitoring software -- systems that track activity via desktop monitoring, keystroke tracking and even GPS location -- has shot up since the pandemic.
One Florida-based social media marketing company, according to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), installed software on employees' devices that took screenshots of their desktop every 10 minutes.
Such surveillance has given rise to what human resource professionals call "productivity theater" –- in which some employees seek to project that they are busy while doing nothing constructive.
A series of "tutorials" on platforms including TikTok and YouTube even teach how to appear busy on computer screens, which generally go black after a few minutes of inactivity.
Those include fake PowerPoint techniques for "when you need to take your afternoon nap."
"Just hit 'slideshow' and you're good," Sho Dewan, an influencer who identifies himself as an "ex-recruiter sharing HR secrets," said in a TikTok video that garnered millions of views.
The device will stay "active" while the presentation is on, he said flashing a thumbs up before a slide that read: "Really important work meeting."
Among the hundreds of comments under the video, one viewer quipped: "At one point I taped a mouse to an oscillating fan -- why couldn't I have found (this) sooner?"
- 'Seriously backfire' -
Another trick noted in the tutorials involves opening a notes application and placing a lock on any keyboard letter. The worker thereby appears active to tracking devices while the page fills up with row after row of the same letter.
But the most popular trick appears to be the deployment of mouse jigglers, widely available on Amazon for as little as $11.
"Push the button when you're getting up from your desk and the cursor travels randomly around the screen -- for hours, if needed!" reads one product review on Amazon.
But there remains a serious risk of getting caught.
In one viral Reddit post titled "My manager caught me with a mouse jiggler," an employee noted that the transgression was the "last straw" after he excused himself from several meetings citing "power outages" and "thunderstorms."
He noted that he had installed a software-based jiggler, prompting some readers to suggest using "non detectable" physical ones.
HR professionals warn of the dangers of surveilling employees and confusing keyboard activity with productivity.
One survey cited by HBR suggested that secretly monitoring employees can "seriously backfire."
"We found that monitored employees were substantially more likely to take unapproved breaks, disregard instructions, damage workplace property, steal office equipment, and purposefully work at a slow pace," the HBR report said.
A.J. Mizes, chief executive of the consulting firm Human Reach, said the use of mouse jigglers demonstrated a "work culture driven by metrics rather than meaningful productivity and human connection."
"There has been a growing troubling trend of excessive surveillance in corporate America," Mizes told AFP.
"Rather than stirring up innovation and trust, this surveillance approach will only push employees to find additional ways to appear busy."
A.Mahlangu--AMWN