Is it an Invasion of Privacy for Your Company to Analyze Your Data? Or is it Exactly What You Want?

Usually we share some top highlights and news on what is going on, but since it’s August, let’s take a plunge into the deep end. Dive in, and feel free to share. 

When I was building my company, I was frustrated with the lack of available metrics for the data from existing software tools like G Suite (Calendars & Emails), Salesforce, Slack, and many others.

Too often I hear companies say to themselves, ‘OK, we’ve opted in for MS teams, and people are using it.’ They tick the box, but it’s not enough. The same companies are now focusing on how these platforms affect productivity. A treasure trove of data is going to waste. Basic metrics like the “monthly active users”, or “calls made” is not enough - you need to go deeper.

Let’s use Time is Ltd. as an example. A few weeks ago, we looked at our calls data to identify which tools are most popular among our teams, to find out their preferences (our approach is to give people the option to use what they like and prefer). We almost overlooked the fact that the majority of our employees actually call via Slack, as opposed to Zoom, Webex, or Google Hangouts/Meet. Slack is partly to blame for this, neither their Slack analytics section, nor their Slack API include the amount of calls your team made. And even when you invest in the Slack Plus Plan and run your exports, the data on calls is buried within other messages as a “message”.

This is just one example of a company trying to understand its collaboration tools and, therein, their employees’ behaviour. But let’s get to the bottom of the problem - should this be happening? And, if so, is this an invasion of employee privacy? 

We are already comfortable with sharing more

You might think that getting everyone to opt-in on sharing their data is impossible, especially in companies of 1,000+ people. Employees are already compliant with transparency. It became common practice within tools in recent years to increase transparency of data and information.  

One example is sales teams. Most sales organisations started with the maximum level of privacy - your data was for your eyes and your manager’s alone. Yet now with CRM platforms like Salesforce, companies have taken huge leaps towards transparency. People build their own reports and their colleagues can see the same. This transparency is bolstering healthy competition. 

Another example is calendar visibility, which before the major adoption of cloud tools like Office 365 and G Suite was set to private by default; today. People don’t think twice about sharing this data - in Google everyone can see most employees calendars. Written communication is moving in the same direction. Email is our most private channel, but most of this content is now being made public on channels in Slack - open to comment, open to scrutiny. We see the same thing with document sharing. 

It has become the norm: the sharing of this data that we classify INTERNALLY PUBLIC. Most CIOs get this, and are incorporating massive programs to support faster sharing and cloud collaboration. Our culture around openness is shifting. So why not analyze this at scale inside the company, and how to do it correctly? 

How this data can be used ethically

Is there such a thing as going too far with internal data analysis? Of course. Companies still need guidelines regarding how to best use employee data without invading people’s privacy. 

I discuss this with multinational companies every day. It’s a trade-off. To first understand the right way to do this, let’s look at some bad practices.

BAD Monitoring

5 Unethical People Analytics Principles

1. Reading private emails
2. Reading people’s private Slack
3. Monitoring any private communications
4. Remote computer monitoring 
5. Monitoring browser history

There has to be a distinction between monitoring and spying. There have to be limits to the way we use and process this information, otherwise the line is crossed. 

5 Ethical People Analytics Principles 

So what is the right way to analyze collaboration data, and making sure that employee privacy is intact? 

1. Avoid bad monitoring (see above!)
2. Aggregation by Team - At Time is Ltd., we look at monitoring in a far less intrusive sense. When you aggregate the information of the company as a whole, you see the bigger picture. At team level, you still get amazing insights. 
3. Anonymization - Before analyzing or transferring to a 3rd party, you have to remove personal information in some way (hash, full anonymization, etc).
4. Data Sharing - Establish how you share this data. Ideally, all team leaders have access to make the changes that will best affect their team. We recommend a pragmatic approach, starting with top leadership, CIO and CHRO organizations, and then passing the valuable data further through the ranks.
5. Set your Limits - We recommend companies draw their own lines. Whether you are a tech company or a large enterprise, your end goal will likely differ. At Time is Ltd., we will never record meeting content or analyze private communication. 

These are also the principles under which we operate at Time is Ltd.

The value for you & your productivity

We are all victims of systemic inefficiencies. These inefficiencies affect your productivity on a personal level, and the company’s productivity on a macro level. If companies use this data, they are helping to eradicate the web of unnecessary collaboration overhead within your workplace that plague our time and eat into real working hours. 

This is the future of how data sharing will work: the focus is not on every day individual actions, but on company behavior as a whole. Privacy, therefore, shouldn’t be the question, productivity should.

We have proven that through passive data, you can not only reduce the over-use of emails, meetings, but advance to analyzing agile transformation progress, without the need of lengthy surveys. 

With Time is Ltd. analytics, a company can take the big bulk of this collaboration data at hand and modernize their collaboration.

What can you do now? 

How many video calls were you on today? How many tabs do you have open right now? How many emails are lying unread in your inbox? How many message notifications have pinged in your ears today? If you’re the productive type, you know you want to reduce that. But you alone might not have the power to affect your company’s culture. At Time is Ltd. we are here to help. 

So, if you’re not responsible for productivity in your company, forward this article to the person who is. Your CIO or Chief of HR can help change the conversation around internal transparency. Time is Ltd. productivity analytics can help you take back some of your time. 

How is your organization handling employee data privacy? What do you predict for the future of transparency? Comment below, we want to know.