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Microprocessing
Give Workers a Room of Their Own
Constant Slack surveillance harms businesses and, more importantly, employees
Earlier this month, The Verge published a damning story about the luggage startup Away. Former employees alleged that co-founder and CEO Steph Korey created a toxic workplace environment by berating and belittling employees; manipulating them into working on vacation or “asking” them to cancel their vacations altogether; encouraging long hours without overtime; and posting long, vicious rants in the company’s Slack. Away’s problems weren’t limited to headquarters. As the latest Verge update revealed on Tuesday, the company’s mismanagement and neglect extended even to the company’s retail stores, where workers were exposed to noxious paint fumes and toiled often without air-conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter.
Among the many horrors at Away, one thing stuck out to me: Employees were not allowed to email each other, and private channels or direct messages were almost entirely forbidden except in very small, particular circumstances, such as asking a colleague to lunch. All other communications were to take place in public Slack channels that everyone in the company had access to. (Away did not respond to OneZero’s request for comment about its Slack guidelines.)
While the company claimed this was to create a culture of “transparency,” as the Verge article notes, it instead created one of surveillance and discomfort. By requiring that all employee conversations occur where anyone could potentially be watching and listening, Away effectively created a panopticon that made workers feel that anything they said or did was subject to managerial oversight.
That’s a bad idea — at least if you care about your company being successful (and your workers being happy). A feeling of constant surveillance can have significant repercussions for employees, including job dissatisfaction, fear, and even eventual depression and anxiety.
Unfortunately, most American workers are surveilled on the job in one way or another. A poll by the American Management Association found that 80% of major U.S. companies monitored employee email, phone use, and internet use, up from 35% in 1997. It’s considerably…
