The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in government, business, media and NGOs is down over the previous year. At a time when more than three quarters of Canadian employees fear they will lose their job due to a variety of factors like technological change, a looming recession and jobs being moved oversees– Canadians don’t have confidence in their leaders to address the challenge.
Canadians did not one find one institution to be both competent and ethical – a combination of attributes they see as necessary to earn the trust of the public, as 62 per cent of Canadians feel the pace of change in technology is moving too fast. Despite high employment rates, Canadians are deeply concerned about their economic future. Only 1 in 3 Canadians believe they and their families will be better off in five years’ time.
The trust gap between the informed public and the mass population dropped from a high of 20 points in 2019 to 16 points in 2020, signaling continued polarization in the system. The closing gap is attributed to a notable decrease in trust of the informed public, aged 25-64 and defined as those who are college-educated, in the top quarter for household income in their age group, and who regularly consume or engage with news. This decline is notable against the backdrop of continued uncertainty in Canada around the economy and trade with both the United States and China.
The country’s current leaders – CEOs and government – may not be the solution, as nearly two in three Canadians do not have confidence that these leaders will successfully address the country’s challenges. There is also uncertainty about where to turn to for quality information, with half of Canadians believing that the media they use is contaminated with untrustworthy information and a staggering seventy-one per cent worrying about fake news being used as a weapon.
Overall, Canadians are yearning for leadership. In two years, the percent of Canadians saying company CEOs should take the lead on change has increased from 68 per cent in 2018 to 80 per cent in 2020.
For full results visit https://www.edelman.ca/trust-barometer/trust-barometer-2020.
Barclays Employees Were Spied Upon Via Company Installed Spyware On Employees’ Computers…. WTF?
Posted in Commentary with tags Privacy on February 21, 2020 by itnerdBarclays has been criticised by HR experts and privacy campaigners after the bank installed “Big Brother” employee monitoring software in its London headquarters. In other words, the company used spyware to spy on their employees:
Introduced as a pilot last week, the technology monitors Barclays workers’ activity on their computers, and in some instances admonishes staff in daily updates to them if they are not deemed to have been active enough — which is described as being in “the zone.” The system tells staff to “avoid breaks” as it monitors their productivity in real-time, and records activities such as toilet visits as “unaccounted activity.” A whistleblower at the banking giant told City A.M. that “the stress this is causing is beyond belief” and that it “shows an utter disregard for employee wellbeing.” “Employees are worried to step away from their desks, have full lunch breaks, take bathroom breaks or even get up for water as we are not aware of the repercussions this might have on our statistics,” they added. Big Brother Watch, a privacy campaign group, described the technology as “creepy.” The software, provided by Sapience, has been rolled out throughout the product control department within the investment bank division at the firm’s Canary Wharf headquarters.
Once this was made public, Barclays terminated the program. But I suspect that Barclays isn’t the only company doing something like this because employers want to maximize the productivity of their employees. And some will use methods like this to do it. The problem is that once this is out in the public domain, employees who have a problem with this will simply leave. Which of course hurts the company as the talent leaves which is expensive, and then you have to try and recruit new talent which is also expensive. Plus train them and the like, which is you guessed it, expensive. While you should have no expectation of privacy in the workplace, schemes like this go way too far. Thus if you’re an employer who things that this is a good idea, you might want to think again.
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