the quantified self at work
TRANSCRIPT
THE QUANTIFIED SELF AT WORK
Dr Phoebe MooreLaw and Politics, School of Law
ESRC Seminar SeriesRegulation of work and employment:
Towards a disciplinary, multilevel frameworkThursday 17th September 2015
p. moore primary investigator (2015-7) agility, work and the quantified self. british academy/leverhulme small grant schemep. moore, a. robinson (2015) the quantified self in precarity. new media and society pre-print available www.mdx.academia.edu/PHOEBEMOORE p. moore, l. piwek (2015) unintended consequences and the dark side of the quantified self commissioned paper by sustainable societies network and epsrc www.mdx.academia.edu/PHOEBEMOOREp. moore (2015) tracking bodies, the quantified self and the corporeal turn in kees van der pijl (ed) the international political economy of production (edward elgar) www.mdx.academia.edu/PHOEBEMOOREp. moore, c. till (fc2015) the quantified self at work. science, technology and human values special issuep.moore (2014) the politics of wearables. imperica digital arts and culture magazine interview feature article18/03/14 www.imperica.com/en/features/phoebe-moore-wearable-politicsp.moore (2014) the quantified self at work. cybersalon the cyborg’s new clothes public lecture www.cybersalon.org/wearable/p. moore (2011) subjectivity in the ecologies of p2p production. the journal of fibreculture fcj-119. http://seventeen.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-119-peer-to-peer-production-a-revolutionary-or-neoliberal-mode-of-subjectivation/p. moore (2010) the international political economy of work and employability (palgrave macmillan) www.mdx.academia.edu/PHOEBEMOORE p. moore and p. a. taylor (2009) ‘exploitation of the self in community-based software production – workers’ freedoms or firm foundations?’ capital & class vol. 97, pp. 99–120. www.mdx.academia.edu/PHOEBEMOORE
BA/Leverhulme
■ This project will look at two companies introducing WSTT as a strategy to facilitate agile working places. We will ask what is the impact of introducing an intervening technology into workplaces? To what extent does it improve employees’ satisfaction of work, productivity, autonomy and work/life balance? Through rich qualitative research we will gain data to inform an innovative work design model for the new world of agile work.
■ The term agile was introduced in 1991 (Sanchez and Nagi 2001, 3563) focussing on principles for more frequent, simplified, self-organised team-based software development and delivery. ‘Agile’ has often used as a replacement term for ‘lean’ production but it differs in that it is seen as a necessary response to the complexity that comes about with constant change in unpredictable environments (Ibid.; Cooke 2010).
Theorising the quantified self at workCMSThe continuing dominance of discourse has left CMS researchers subject to criticism that they have naively ignored materiality. Yet critics of CMS also understate the significance of subjectivities, recognisable through discourse and text.
Dominant post-structuralist approaches’ dependence on discourse as means of analysis has left it subject to criticism that it naively ignored materiality and the relevance it has for co-constitution of the social. Critics of poststructuralism have also often understated the significance of subjectivity and subjectification (Foucault).
Feminist new materialism, like agential realism, holds that ‘language has been granted too much power. The linguistic turn, the semiotic turn, the interpretive turn, the cultural turn… even materiality is turned into a matter of language or some other form of cultural representation’ (Barad, 2003: 801). The dominance of discourse and language and descriptions of social change that focus on culture is outdated. We need to look at nature, the corporeal, monist immanence rather than dualism (where mind dominates body, body only given animalistic ascriptions and mind, reason )
CR/LPCritical realists: Though committed to materiality, are not fully agnostic on the discursive and in 2012 article in Organisation Studies, Thompson and Harley draw from critical discourse analysis (Fairclough et al, 2011) and cultural political economy (Sum and Jessop, 2013) to advocate a place for the discussion fo the ‘role of discourse in organizational and system-level change… apply[ing] this framework to the supposed emergence of the knowledge-based economy (KBE) as a ‘hegemonic discourse’ (Thompson and Harley, 2012: 1365).
Labour Process: Materialist--seeing WSTT from lens of labour process theory which is ontologically orthodox Marxist
■ Thompson P and B Harley (2012) ‘Beneath the Radar? A critical realist analysis of ‘the knowledge economy’ and ‘shareholder value’ as competing discourses’, Organisation Studies 33(10): 1363 -- 1381.
■ Bates S R (2015) The Emergent Body, Critical Realism and the Corporeal in contemporary capitalist society. Global Society 29(1): 128 – 147.
■ Martin P (2015) Between sociology and the business school: Critical studies of work, employment and organisation in the UK. The Sociological Review 63: 162 - 180.
■ Morgeson F P, Humphrey S E (2006) ‘The Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) Developing and Validating Comprehensive Measure for Assessing Job Design and the Nature of Work’ Journal of Applied Psychology 91(6): 1321 – 1339.
■ McKinlay A and Taylor P (2014) Foucault, Governmentality, and Organization: Inside the Factory of the Future, New York and London: Routledge
■ Fleming P (2014) Resisting Work: The Corporatising of Life and its Discontents. Philadelphia, PN: Temple University Press. ■ Edgar F, Geare A, Halhjem M, Reese K and Thorensen, C. (2015) ‘Well-being and performance: measurement issues for HRM
research’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management 26(15): 1983 -- 1994. ■ Cohen J E (2012) Configuring the networked self: law, code, and the play of everyday practice (New Haven, CN: Yale University
Press).■ Barad K (2003) ‘Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter’. Signs: Journal of
Women in Culture and Society (28): 801–31.■
Cederstrom C and Spicer A (2015) The Wellness Syndrome. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity.■ Orlikowski W J and Scott S V (2015) Exploring Material-Discursive Practices. Journal of Management Studies 52(5): 697 -- 705. ■ Brown A (2014) Critical realism in social research: approach with caution. Work Employment and Society 28(1): 112 – 123. ■ Fleetwood S (2014) Critical realism and systematic dialectics: a reply to Andrew Brown. Work Employment and Society 28(1):
124 – 138.
Wellness syndrome
Quantified self at work
BPAmerica ‘the program has improved morale, contributed to the corporate culture, improved the health of employees, and lowered insurance rates for both the company as well as individuals’
Sensory devicesMovement, location, steps, voice quality, heartrateDiscovering the autonomic self
7-day weekend
■ LIVING WELL ‘The state of Kentucky... operates a LivingWell wellness program used by more than 137,000 employees who agree to undergo a health assessment or biometric screening, with the data kept confidential with HumanaVitality, a third party. Participants in LivingWell earn Vitality points, which can be redeemed for prizes such as movie tickets, digital cameras and hotel stays, with values of up to $300.’ http://www.computerworld.com/article/2937721/wearables/wearables-for-workplace-wellness-face-federal-scrutiny.html#tk.ctw-cio
■ IRON MOUNTAIN http://www.computerworld.com/article/2937333/wearables/wearables-and-company-wellness-programs-go-hand-in-hand.html
■ OUTSIDE VIEW http://theoutsideview.co.uk/ On this site you can find a video of the project this company did with employees, look for the video entitled FT Business: Wearables Technology at Work: Will it Catch On?
■ BPAMERICA http://www.fastcompany.com/3036331/wearable-computing/what-industries-are-the-first-to-introduce-wearables-at-work
■ DELOITTE AND BPAMERICA http://www.humanyze.com/ Humanyze tracks movement and voice patterns across employees, BPAmerica noted that the prediector for productivity has to do with how much people speak, tone of voice, volume
■ (and many more)
Socio-metrics
Digitising precarity
Warehouse and factory work
Arm-band replaces clipboard
Body searches
Work intensification, rationalisation
Professional workplacesWell-being/Well-billing
Gamification
Autonomy capture
Legality?
SurveyN: 14Sex: 7y, 7xAge:1y 21-252y 26-303x, 2y 36-402x 1y 41 – 451x 46 – 501y 1x 51 – 55Smartphone use: 7x, 7yAndroid: 9, iPhone: 5SN: 7x, 7y
WSTT: 1y, 5x--Runkeeper: 2x, FitBit, 2x, 2y, Strava 2xHealth: good 5x, 4y; fair 2x, 2yRate productivity: good 7x, 5y fair 1y blank 1Work most productively: office 3x, 4y; home 3x, 1y; road 1xPersonal control/independence over work: strongly agree 6x, 4y; somewhat agree 1x, 2y
Consumers have lost all control over how personal information is collected and used by companies■ Blank: 1 female Iy ■ Strongly agree: 5 males, 4 females Ix Ix Ix Ix Iy Iy Iy Ix Iy■ Somewhat agree: 0■ Somewhat disagree: 2 females, 2 males Iy Ix Ix Iy■ Strongly disagree: 0Most businesses handle the personal information they collect about consumers in a proper and confidential way ■ Blank: 1 female Iy ■ Strongly agree: 1 female, 1 male Iy Ix■ Somewhat agree: 1 female, 1 male Ix Iy■ Somewhat disagree: 5 males, 4 females Ix Ix Ix Ix Iy Iy Iy Ix Iy■ Strongly disagree: 0Existing laws and organisational practices provide a reasonable level of protection for consumer privacy today■ Blank: 1 female Iy ■ Strongly agree: 3 males Ix Ix Ix■ Somewhat agree: 3 females Iy Iy Iy■ Somewhat disagree: 3 females, 3 males Ix Ix Ix Iy Iy Iy■ Strongly disagree: 1 male Ix
INTERVIEWS MetadataPhenomenon■ When did you start using WSTT? [date]■ Did you use any WSTT before the Quantified Self Workplace (QSW) experiment
at Colliers? [binary: Y/N] [if Y: descriptive] ■ [If Y to 7] What kinds do you use? [descriptive]■ What does it feel like to use WSTT? Causal Conditions■ How did you find out about QSW? [choice: launch, word-of-mouth, e-mail,
other]■ What were your original thoughts about the project? [descriptive]■ Was there a trigger that inspired you to get involved? [descriptive]■ What does it mean for you to use these technologies? [descriptive]■ What are your reasons for continuing to use WSTT? [choice: to feel in control,
to become more productive or better at a task, to meet other people, other]■ When do you mostly use WSTT? [weekday, time] ■ Why this time and why not at other times/contexts? [descriptive]■ What goals did you set in using WSTT? [descriptive]
Intervening Conditions■ Have you ever experienced any difficulties in using WSTT? [binary: Y/N] ■ [If Y to 19] What were those difficulties? [descriptive] ■ Did you find that you stopped using WSTT at some point? [binary: Y/N] ■ [if Y to 20] Why did you stop? [descriptive]■ [if Y to 20] For how long did you stop for? [numeric: number of days]Consequences■ Do you feel that WSTT has helped you to meet your goals? [binary: Y/N]■ [If Y to 23] Which goals, and to what extent? [descriptive]■ [If N to 23] Why not? [descriptive]■ Do you feel that using WSTT at work is helping you feel satisfied with your work? [binary: Y/N]■ [If Y to 26] Why it helps you? [descriptive]■ [If N to 26] Why it doesn’t help you? [descriptive]■ Are there any changes to your feelings of autonomy? [binary: Y/N]■ [If Y to 29] What changes? [descriptive]■ Has the use of WSTT improved your sense of productivity? [binary: Y/N] ■ [if Y to 31] How it improved? [descriptive]■ In what ways has the use of WSTT affected your motivation? [descriptive]■ In what ways has the use of WSTT affected your mood or emotions? [descriptive]■ In what ways has the use of WSTT affected your relationships (with other users or existing
friends/non-users)? [descriptive]■ In what ways has the use of WSTT affected your self-efficacy in relation to various tasks (e.g. if
used for exercise, do you believe that you exercise better)? [descriptive]
GoalsGrowing awareness ; To stay healthy: Getting insight into my personal work-life balance; Getting insight in the Colliers drivers of wellbeing; Getting insight in the Colliers drivers of productivity; The right balance between productive and health; To improve my working and personal life and make it more effective; Create a balance between work and privateSelf-awareness 18 ‘I’m sure it makes you aware of things you do.’; ‘I see when I’m frustrated my heartbeat is higher.’; ‘You want to learn more about yourself.’Critical or unsure 40 ’I don’t really see the purpose of it’; ‘Many of us are worried about privacy’; ‘I don’t find it really interesting to be honest’; ‘I don’t really see the purpose of it’ and ‘I am quite critical.’; ‘Why can’t we see our data?’ One respondent indicated that ‘a big question for me and for a few others as well, is uh, how reliable the FitBit is’.
Motivation: ‘It is a stimulation to make sure I make enough steps in a day.’; ‘It stimulates me to go exercise when I am tired after a long day at work.’; ‘It’s a trigger for me to wake up a little bit earlier and relax in the morning.’Relationships: ‘Exchanging experiences make you aware about the way other work. And sometimes you can learn from each other’; ‘It helps in connecting’; ‘I’m noticing the last weeks that, uh, especially if we have appointments with our clients and two three of [company name], they see us wearing it and it’s always the subject (laughs) and it’s very nice.’Behaviour change: ‘It is a stimulation to make sure I make enough steps in a day.’ ‘It stimulates me to go exercise when I am tired after a long day at work.’ ‘It’s a trigger for me to wake up a little bit earlier and relax in the morning.’Self-awareness: ‘I’m sure it makes you aware of things you do.’ ‘I see when I’m frustrated my heartbeat is higher.’ ‘You want to learn more about yourself.’ 7 responses indicated that employees felt that relationships were changing as a result of the experiment, both with clients and other colleagues. For example, employees noticed that: ‘Exchanging experiences make you aware about the way other work. And sometimes you can learn from each other’
Until now and next steps■ Encroachment, intimacy of monitoring and control at work■ Paternalism? Accelerated performance management?■ Technology in work design ■ Quantification does not reflect real life■ Ostracized if opting-out■ All of life, seven day weekend■ Work-life integration/imbalance■ Gamification, competitive behaviour■ Displacement of accountability■ Work intensification, rationalisation■ Union responses■ Legal issues: health Vs medical data, data protection, privacy
‘Computers don’t lie but liars can compute’