Uncooperative and toxic staffers are under the microscope.
Can employees be held responsible for “toxic” Slack channel posts or extreme social media posts?
Big brands like Walmart, Delta, T-Mobile, Chevron, and Starbucks are among the companies leveraging AI company Aware’s new AI-powered employee communication tracking tool to monitor employees.
The AI tracking software, which the company more formally calls “people intelligence”, keeps a pulse on your organization with” real-time feedback from the break room to the board room,” the company states on its website.
“Collaboration platforms,” like Slack, Teams, and Workplace from Meta, are the digital HQ for your organization and hold the key to how your employees feel,” the company adds. “With Aware, you can unlock a continuous understanding of your employee experience – no annual survey required.”
Workplace experts say there’s a fine line between “unlocking” employee sentiments and monitoring them for toxic thoughts and speech.
“A lot of this becomes thought crime,” Jutta Williams, co-founder of Humane Intelligence, commented to CNBC. “This is treating people like inventory in a way I’ve not seen.”
Good Reasons to Track Staffers Online?
Companies like Walmart and Delta widely use AI software to track employee engagement on popular workplace meet-up platforms like Slack, Teams, and Workplace.
Why would a company need to keep tabs on its employees online? There are multiple reasons, according to Aware, with these threats at the top of the list.
• Accidental sharing: Employees may inadvertently share sensitive information through messages, files, or screen recordings.
• Malicious activity: Insider threat actors may use the complexity of collaboration tools to hide noncompliant data sharing.
• Shadow IT: Unauthorized use of personal accounts or non-approved tools can bypass security and compliance controls.
• Data sprawl: Unstructured data in collaboration platforms can be challenging to track and manage, increasing compliance risks.
It’s all about “understanding the risk within (company) communications,” noted Aware CEO Jeff Schumann, co-founder and CEO. “Companies can “get a read on employee sentiment in real-time, rather than depending on an annual or twice-per-year survey,” he told CNBC.
Schumann says Aware studies over 100 million bits of data daily and packages the data to meet a customer’s individual data needs.
Delta, for example, leverages Aware’s eDiscovery tools to track employee and customer feedback.
“It’s always tracking real-time employee sentiment, and it’s always tracking real-time toxicity,” Schumann told CNBC. “If you were a bank using Aware and the workforce sentiment spiked in the last 20 minutes, they’re talking about something positively, collectively. The technology would be able to tell them whatever it was.”
Consumer watchdogs seem concerned about employee digital data being picked over so thoroughly, but Schumann says the technology “won’t have names of people, to protect the privacy.”
Time will tell if workers should be worried about AI-fueled technologies dissecting their every digital engagement. For now, companies like Aware are taking full advantage of artificial intelligence’s lightning-fast data analysis to illuminate employee habits and mannerisms online – for good or bad.
Brian O’Connell, a former Wall Street bond trader and best-selling author, is a prominent figure in the finance industry. With a substantial background as an ex-Wall Street trader, he has authored two best-selling books: ‘The 401k Millionaire’ and ‘CNBC’s Creating Wealth’, demonstrating his profound knowledge of finance and investing.
Brian is also a finance and business writer for esteemed national platforms and publications, including CNN, TheStreet.com, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, and Fox News.
