May 2 - 3, 2023 | 9 AM - 3:00 PM | Online
Through the work of crusading journalists and advocates, the public has been made acutely aware that employers are using technology to monitor workers’ performance. Sometimes workers have had to forego mandated breaks -- or come in to work during an illness -- to meet productivity goals. Technology has also been used to help protect workers from harmful exposures on the job and to uncover work-related illness through surveillance of health records and workers’ compensation claims.
Surveillance, Monitoring, and Data Gathering in Contemporary Employment is designed to describe the extent of the use of technologies in work, how they are used and why, and what the impacts are on workers and firms. Learners will explore both negative effects of workplace monitoring, and how technology can be a force for good by helping make workplaces safer and more conducive to creativity. The conference will close with a discussion of what is being done -- and what can be done -- to limit draconian uses of technology and to create incentives for the design of more healthful work through policy, advocacy, and community engagement.