Can you lose your job because of Microsoft’s productivity police?

Are you only using 10% of Microsoft Office? Are you taking 2 hours to do something that can actually be done in 30 minutes? Microsoft Office software had a feature that could identify your productivity score in reports to managers. 

The technology was designed as a sales tool for Microsoft to help identify software that could be utilised better at Microsoft corporate clients but it unveiled a whole privacy issue.

Productivity score was intended for IT Managers and not staff supervisors but it tracked the different tools and services you used with the goal of you using them more or better. These included:

• communications
• meetings
• content collaboration
• teamwork, and
• mobility

The goal for Microsoft here is to get customers using as many of Microsofts products as possible, including some of the features in Microsoft Teams like chatrooms and scheduling where Microsoft are fighting with other major software vendors.  

Whistle Blown for Privacy Issue

The fuss was created in the media when a privacy advocate Wolfie Christl blew the whistle about a productivity score for several usage criteria that is measured for employee in the organisation.

Microsoft quickly changed how the data was presented so that the report didn’t identify a specific employee.

The issue was that it identified individual staff members and could have been used in progress meetings and performance reviews. 

After the outcry about workplace surveillance Microsoft has reduced the score to a broad business report available to managers that doesn’t single out individual users and make them identifiable. Read Microsoft’s statement about it.

Office Academy Training Course Package

Although being able to track individual users use of technology from corporate headquarters is not healthy it pays to have confident skills in all Microsoft Office software programs.

It’s particularly if you are a jobseeker looking for and applying for office support and office administration jobs! That’s why we introduced the Microsoft Office Academy. 

Microsoft Excel skills are particularly important if you use MYOB, Xero or QuickBooks Online in your work but knowledge in using all the Microsoft Office Programs can also save many hours a day. If you’re looking for bookkeeping skills checkout our Bookkeeping Academy training course package!