As Woolworths tightens metrics for warehouse workers, academic cites lack of consensus around monitoring
Warehouse workers for supermarket giant Woolworths pick and stack day and night. And at the end of a shift, they find out how they did against their employer’s expectations.
A tracking system that records how long it takes each worker to complete orders provides a score up to 100%. If scores disappoint, a worker may turn up to a shift to find they’ve been matched with a coach for a drill session on how to work faster.
Under the new framework, workers say they face potential disciplinary action if they fail to achieve perfect adherence to a speed-related metric known as pick rates.
“This represents a sharp break from previous approaches in which a pick rate of 100% was a non-enforceable goal, rather than a basic requirement,” according to an article in the Conversation.
Surveillance and monitoring systems are not new, but their impact on workers is being revealed in longitudinal research that suggests employers that get the tech right will see productivity improve, but if they get it wrong, they run the risk of losing staff.
“There is no consensus in the evidence-based literature to say, ‘Yes, digital surveillance increases performance,’” said Melissa Wheeler, a senior lecturer in the Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University.
Wheeler looked at a systematic literature review of 57 studies that measured the effects of tracking technology on worker performance and trust.
“Some [research] found that it decreased performance, in that maybe people were retaliating against being digitally monitored,” she said. “But it did also increase performance for some people, who reported they liked it because it was an objective measure.”
Workers who are shown benchmark targets and who feel they can match them will be spurred on to excel in their jobs, Wheeler said.
“For some people, it gave them that little bit of motivation to say, ‘I’ve got to work a bit harder.’”
Another study found a lift in performance although satisfaction among employees dropped. Management, teams and individual workers can benefit when real-time data are used to convey productivity benchmarks, the authors of the literature review wrote.
“There’s a paradox that exists: the more you surveil people, the less they feel trusted,” Wheeler said. “The less they feel trusted, you start to see other organisational citizenship behaviours dip. People might start looking for other jobs, or they might find other ways to cut corners or to beat the surveillance – to ‘game the game’.”
Too much emphasis on targets can risk “quiet quitting”, where a worker might reason, ‘OK, you’re paying me for this, so I’ll do it. But that’s about it,’” she said.
“I think we’ve lost that intrinsic motivation, where people want to excel because it makes them feel good and because they get a sense of fulfillment,” Wheeler said. “If it is just about being rewarded or punished, then you are going to break it down into what you can game out of it.”
The review of international studies contained observations to support monitoring of performance where it is justified and employed in a collaborative spirit.
One study found digital surveillance led workers to “internalise organisational expectations” so that monitoring became “a game between competing peers”.
Tracking can cut time wasted on non-work activities, Wheeler said, such as chatting by the kitchen bench or surfing social media.
“Such monitoring could even help employers flag some security and safety issues,” she said.
Knowing the mixed findings from research, Wheeler said companies should approach monitoring cautiously.
“Given the lack of consistent evidence on the topic, those who are considering implementing surveillance technology may first want to consider alternative ways to improve efficiency,” she said.
