Corporate America fights 'keyboard fraud'

WASHINGTON — 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 came as employers use sophisticated tools — popularly called "tattleware" or "bossware" — on company-issued devices to monitor productivity in the age of hybrid work that became common after the 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.

This behavior has spurred a wider debate in corporate America about whether screen time and the click-clacking of keyboards are effective yardsticks to measure productivity amid a boom in remote work.

The Wells Fargo workers were dismissed last month following a probe of allegations involving "simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work", Bloomberg reported.

Multiple US surveys show that demand for employee monitoring software has shot up since the pandemic. 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 You-Tube even teach how to appear busy on computer screens, which generally go black after a few minutes of inactivity.

A.J. Mizes, chief executive of consulting firm The 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 Agence France-Presse. "Rather than stirring up innovation and trust, this surveillance approach will only push employees to find additional ways to appear busy."

Agencies Via Xinhua