AS HEARD ON NH Today with Jack Heath WGIR-AM 610: Management Using Surveillance, Critical Infrastructure Hacks, Aftermath of Covid-19 on Businesses

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning. We talked about Management using technology to surveil their employees. How meetings over collaboration software may be interfering with employee work, the FBI warns about hacks on critical infrastructure. Here we go with Jack.

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig
Managers are now turning to surveillance software. These always-on webcams, in some cases, webcams and screen captures, capture that kind of capture things often on it. I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue for people. Hi, everybody. Greg Peterson here, of course, that's me with Jack Heath this morning. We're talking about the unintended consequences of monitoring employees while they're working from home.

Jack
Welcome back. Craig Peterson. Tech Talk guy and Craig. Justin asked a question in the last break. Are you ready for this? Craig? All right. He asked me if you could get sick if you catch a virus through a zoom chat. I said no, Justin stopping once you stop.

Craig
It's not like the telephone you useable to get them over the phone. But this is a computer, so you're not going to get that kind of a virus over zoom. Yeah,

Justin
Ask me that with all these zoom chats and Microsoft Teams to get the virus.

Jack
No Justin.

Craig
Or you can get some types of computer viruses because you can share files. And we still have the same problem there.

Jack
Yeah. Well, you know, and I know that speaking of the virus, ironically, you can get sick through the computer because the viruses, people are taking advantage of this virus.

Craig
Yeah, they are. There are a lot of bad people out there. We've seen increases of 30% to 300% on various types of hack attempts against us. We have some warnings coming out from the federal government through the FBI about attacks on multiple types of critical infrastructure. We're seeing them worldwide. And but you know, there's an exciting trend that's happening Jack too, with managers. So many people are starting to work from home, and some have been very effective, and I've heard business people saying yes, I'm just going to keep this up, at least for these particular classifications of people. But managers are now turning to surveillance software, these always-on webcams, or in some cases, webcams and screen captures, capture that kind of capture things often on it, I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue for people. And we have to remember that, you know, businesses shouldn't be providing the hardware for people to work from home, but on the other side of companies are providing the hardware. They may also be doing some of this monitoring, including continual always-on surveillance. Yeah.

Jack
Yeah. I've heard some instances about the software of just you know, managers. You know, if you turn your camera off for two minutes, send you an email and what's going on why is your camera not on or send you a text like all cameras on it's, it's a, I think people want to be a little aware that we're different. Home can be a challenge. And B, everybody's a bit stressed out right now. So no one's going to be working, you know, full to full capacity. 10 hours a day.

Craig
Yeah, exactly. It reminded me of when I was teaching MIS 422 out at Pepperdine. We were talking about the effect that we saw in business when monitoring employees. The other side of this is the psychological side, where your employees now know you are watching them, whether it's always on or maybe it's just a sample here and there. There's a psychological effect. It's very, very negative against people. And although business owners are now thinking that employees aren't going to leave right away, because of most employees, of course, you know, Maslow's hierarchy. Most employees are concerned they don't want to lose the job, lose the income, so they're not going to move, that this type of monitoring is going to drive some employees away. I've said that I think companies are going to study long after this pandemic is said and done. How will they communicate? What portion of the workforce that will be left working from home even after the concerns of the spread, because they found new efficiencies? They will need to consider costs for people in major urban markets, commutes, factor the commercial real estate, rent cost, and leasing costs. There's been a debate about people who are the conference calls and the zoom chats, too many, you know. Are you allowing your employees to sell or do their job if wanting check-ins from eight to seven at night, every hour? Do you have a call? Are you doing your work if you're on the con call? I think they will do studies on the effectiveness of this period. What was too much? What was too little? What worked? What did not work?

Jack
We'll see how that all shakes out. Craig Peterson, thank you. Craig makes a great Monday, Craig Peterson dot com. Thank you, Craig. Thanks, some tech talks. No, Justin, you cannot get the virus in the zoom chat.

Craig
Alright, everybody, I hope you are doing better states are opening up more and more stuff. The aftermath will reveal much. I'm going to keep you up with it on top of all of it. We've got some things planned here to help businesses that are turning everything back on because you might also find that your tech people are gone. Now, this has hurt a lot of the smaller tech businesses. Anyhow, we want to keep you up to date, and we need to keep you in the loop, and the only way you're going to be in that loop is if you go to Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, make sure you do it. And I will be letting you know what's going on because we've got a lot of stuff coming up real soon. Take care, everybody. Craig peterson.com slash subscribe.

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