刚刚，“四大”某记某成员所“加强”监控员工出勤情况！|英国_新浪财经

来源：四大新鲜事儿

据英国《金融时报》报道，为了打击违反公司混合工作政策的行为，安永(EY)已开始监控员工的出勤情况了。

该公司的人士告诉英国《金融时报》，最近几周，这家四大公司的一些合伙人已经看到了匿名的“旋转门访问”数据，显示员工到其办公室的频率。

消息人士向英国《金融时报》表示，该公司正将这些数据作为“奖励而非惩罚”的依据，鼓励团队遵守安永的混合型工作指导方针。公司要求员工每周至少两天时间去办公室办公，但一些团队中至少有一半没有遵照此建议。

安永在英国拥有约2.1万名员工。一位知情人士表示，该公司还向一些合伙人展示了将办公室出勤率与年中业绩评级联系起来的分析。

据报道，该公司还在2023年10月更新了员工隐私通知，以反映卡录入数据“收集和进一步处理”的变化，这将使安永能够监督“灵活的工作安排，包括知悉员工的工作地点”。

越多的雇主希望鼓励更多员工重返办公室。包括法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)和Slaughter & May律师事务所在内的几家英国大型雇主，正在使用楼宇访问数据来监控办公室出勤率和对混合工作政策的遵守情况。

《泰晤士报》本周的一篇报道还指出，一些雇主已经开始使用监控软件来监控员工在家和办公室的工作情况。一名未透露姓名的员工称，公司每10分钟就会截取一张截图，以分析员工的工作效率水平。

英国信息专员办公室(Information Commissioner’s Office)2023年10月发布了指导意见，警告称“过度监控可能对员工的数据保护权利和自由产生不利影响”，并且“可能侵犯工人的私人生活，损害他们的隐私和精神健康”。

早在2023年4月，Going Concern的笔者就写过这个“奖励而非惩罚”的问题。笔者2023年4月6日发布过“当其他行业转向困境时，会计师事务所继续鼓励RTO”:

安永(EY)首席福利官Frank Giampietro在《员工福利新闻》(Employee Benefits News)最近的一篇文章中表示，安永将继续鼓励员工重返办公室。

在安永，他们意识到员工在家的责任让一些人无法重回办公室。“我们有部分员工家庭成员较多，当他们要出去工作时，我们发现有各种各样的事情阻碍着他们，其中一些是经济上的。他们必须消除障碍，创造机会。”因此，安永在现有的1000美元福利基金的基础上增加了800美元，用于支付儿童保育、宠物护理和通勤等费用。

Giampietro说，这背后的信息是，当人们面对面地在一起时效率会更高，公司正在努力让员工实现这一点。这一做法也有效果:在短短一年多的时间里，安永重返办公室的员工增加了150%。

上述文章发表一周后，有关普华永道(PwC)的传言开始流传开来。普华永道曾宣称，将在2021年永远拥施行程和混合工作模式。德勤随后也加入了RTO的行列。

原英文报道如下：

Financial Times:

Accountancy firm EY has become the latest employer to use staff turnstile data to monitor office attendance in a crackdown on breaches of its hybrid working policy.

It has been reported that swipe card entry data is being circulated among senior managers in the UK, showing how frequently staff are attending its offices.

Sources told the Financial Times that the company is using the data as a “carrot rather than a stick” to encourage teams to comply with EY’s hybrid working guidelines, with it being estimated that at least half of some teams were failing to attend the office for at least the recommended two days per week.

The firm also reportedly updated its staff privacy notice in October to reflect changes to the “collection and further processing” of card entry data which would allow EY to oversee “flexible work arrangements, including awareness of … working location”.

EY has been contacted for comment.

Several major UK employers are using building access data to monitor office attendance and adherence to hybrid working policies, including BNP Paribas and law firm Slaughter & May.

There is a growing desire among employers to encourage more employees back into offices. Nationwide Building Society recently told staff it was scrapping its “work from anywhere” policy and would require a minimum of two days in the office per week, while Bank of America has threatened disciplinary action if employees refuse to meet office attendance requirements.

Barbara Matthews, chief people officer at HR software and employment tools provider Remote, said that tracking office attendance can indicate distrust between employers and employees. “It signals a belief that employees need to be physically present and monitored by managers in order to be productive,” she said.

“It lays a sour foundation for the relationship between management and employees, leaving employees feeling mistrusted which in turn can negatively impact productivity. Forcing employees back to the office is also detrimental to the ongoing battle to attract and retain talent.“

A report in The Times this week has also suggested some employers have started using surveillance software to monitor employees’ work at home and in the office, with one worker claiming her employer, which was not named, took a screenshot every 10 minutes to analyse employees’ productivity levels.

The Information Commissioner’s Office recently issued guidance warning that “excessive monitoring can have an adverse impact on the data protection rights and freedoms of workers” and is “likely to intrude into workers’ private lives and undermine their privacy and mental wellbeing”.

Matthews said that using surveillance software could be seen to violate employees’ trust and privacy.

She said: “Software that monitors employees plants a seed of distrust between management and employees, but also presents a number of privacy issues, particularly in cases of excessive or covert monitoring of work computers where the employee does not get a full overview of the extent to which they are being monitored and what this data is being used for.

“Managers need to move towards measuring impact and output, not time spent tapping on a keyboard, as well as better leaning into goal setting, communication and feedback in order to build trust and empower employees to become more independent.”

Going Concern:

The following story from Financial Times pertains to EY UK however it confirms what many have suspected is happening here in the US: at least one Big 4 firm is watching badge swipes to make sure their little grunts are in the office like they’re supposed to be. Spoiler: they aren’t.

FT:

EY has started monitoring UK employees’ office attendance, with swipe card entry data being circulated at senior levels of the firm as some of its staff flout its hybrid working guidelines.

Some partners at the Big Four firm have been shown anonymised “turnstile access” data in recent weeks showing how frequently staff are attending its offices, people at the firm told the Financial Times.

One person said the statistics would be used in parts of the business as a “carrot rather than a stick” to influence teams to comply with EY’s hybrid working guidelines. They added that at least 50 per cent of some teams were failing to meet its policy of being in the office at least two days a week.

Once again I would like to extend a huge thanks to blabbermouths who snitch on their firm to the media. You guys are great and we love you.

Let’s add this bit:

Some partners at EY, which employs around 21,000 people in the UK, were also shown analysis correlating office attendance and mid-year performance ratings, one person said.

RIP carrot, we hardly knew ye.

We wrote about this “carrot vs. stick” issue back in April of 2023, just a month or so before Big 4 firms started reversing their position on return-to-office. This is from “While Other Industries Have Turned to the Stick, Accounting Firms Continue to Use the Carrot to Encourage RTO” published April 6, 2023:

In a recent Employee Benefits News piece, Frank Giampietro, chief well-being officer at EY, says that his firm continues to embrace the carrot. Though as the red hot job market cools off, we are beginning to see hints of firms contemplating the stick.

At EY, they realized that employee obligations at home were preventing some people from coming into the office. “We have a multigenerational workforce, and when we went out and talked to our folks, we discovered there was a wide variety of things getting in the way, some of which were financial. We had to remove the barriers and create opportunity,” he said. So the firm added $800 to the existing $1000 well-being fund that reimburses things like childcare, pet care, and commuting. This is the point in the article where the parents laugh heartily at the thought of $800 making even the tiniest difference in the daycare bill.

The message behind this is that great things happen when people are together in person, and the company is invested in making that a reality for employees, says Giampietro. And it’s paid off: The company saw a 150% increase in employees returning to the office in just over a year.

Mind you when we wrote the above, the Great Resignation was just starting to cool off and firms were still a bit freaked out about the whole lack of talent thing. Despite the huge number of accountant shortage articles you’ve read (or skipped over) since then, firms started complaining about low turnover last year which meant overcapacity which meant layoffs. Almost 8,000 layoffs at Big 4 and mid-tier firms in 2023 actually, and that’s only the ones that were officially announced.

A week after the carrotick article went up, rumors started buzzing about PwC — a firm that bragged loudly about embracing remote and hybrid work forever in 2021 — pushing a soft (and generous, TBF) return-to-office. That rumor turned out to be somewhat true. Deloitte then jumped on the RTO bandwagon too. So far no one is expecting every team in the office every day but who knows what the next year could bring.

In October, EY Americas Chief Some Bullshit Officer Frank Giampietro told HR Brew EY expects most staff to spend 40% and 60% of their time working “together in person,” be that in the office or at the client site. So yeah, the guy talking about the carrot in April was suggesting they might have to bust out the stick by October.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, “I’ll quit if you make me come into the office” is no longer a threat. They want you to quit. In some cases, they’re asking you to quit so they don’t have to fire you.

Of course, they can’t fire everybody. Hold the line, pajama gang.

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