Microsoft has expanded Office Suite 365. The expansion features will include functions with which companies can monitor their workforce's working habits in detail.
Under the label "Workplace Analytics," Microsoft has released extensive extensions to the MyAnalytics service overview in its Microsoft365 software package. While MyAnalytics prepares statistics on resource utilization by users, the new Workplace Analytics overview provides additional insights into employees' work habits. "Productivity score" using various benchmarks is calculated from the software.
The knowledge displayed is divided between "Employee Experience" and the "Technology Experience." Employee-related information includes the percentage of users of a company subscription that save content in the Microsoft cloud or share files with external users. Furthermore, the technical information explains how much time is lost when employee PCs boot from conventional hard drives instead of SSDs.
A podcast video from Microsoft also reveals functions for personal employee monitoring: For example, it is noted for each user how many days they sent e-mails and Yammer messages and used chats and news channels. The video also shows the number of days supplemented by mails with cross-references to other e-mail addresses.
By default, the information will contain the names, group memberships, and locations of the employees; the software anonymizes this data, as shown in the video, only optionally. Microsoft 365 knows how long each user has activated his camera and shared his screen in video meetings. The example video only presents anonymous statistics, but these can only be derived from individually collected data.
What is the Best Practice with Microsoft 365 tools only?
With the cloud-stored information from the Microsoft 365 admin center, the company administrators receive information on improvement opportunities. An example would be encouraging employees to share documents for teamwork via the cloud has never been easier. For admins, the admin center evaluates the company-wide performance based on the productivity score.
How can this violate personal rights?
Bertold Brücher, the legal expert at the DGB, says, "Functions with which companies can examine the working practices of their office staff in detail contradict and violate the personal rights of employees, data protection and - if available - the participation rights and obligations of the company or staff councils. " Brücher considers a legally compliant use to be excluded. Employers who use such systems without thinking about these aspects must be aware that they are behaving illegally, says Brücher.
How to get more information on Microsoft Office 365
To get additional information on Microsoft Office 365, Iron Cove Solutions has a strong relationship with third party technology vendors such as Microsoft Office 365 and expertise integrations. Visit our Technology website or give us a call at (888) 959-2825