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The chairman has the feeling he is not getting full value for what he pays his staff and wonders if biometrics and cloud computing can help him keep tabs on late arrivals and smoking breaks.
”What would you say was an acceptable amount of biometric detail to take from one’s employees?” asked the chairman of the implausibly-sized investment company Second Coming Asset Management as we enjoyed a pint or two of Most Deserving Of The Adjective Tragic at The Not A Small Field Among Aspects Of Financial Regulation.
“That’s not really my specialist subject,” I replied. “I’d imagine scanning retinas would be overkill and anything that involves dropping trousers just plain wrong, but I have heard that fingerprinting staff is gaining a degree of acceptance.”
“Is that all?” asked the chairman, looking disappointed. “Why?” I replied. “What were you planning to do exactly?”
“Oh, nothing too specific,” the chairman shrugged. “It was more in the vein of planning for those pesky unknown unknowns. That said, I do have this feeling I am not getting my money’s worth out of my staff.”
“You and every other employer in history,” I observed. “Anyway, bearing in mind how little you actually pay your staff at Scam, how would that be mathematically possible?
“Still, if it helps, I have recently become aware of a new type of company - a ’time and attendance specialist’, no less - which might be able to set your mind at rest. For the ever-watchful souls at Access-to-Time say they have launched a brand new way to keep track of employees, using fingerprint recognition. (Scam continues below)
“I am led to believe that, for the first time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional systems, employers can benefit from state-of-the-art biometric technology to record their staff attendance in the workplace using cloud-based computing.” “Cloud-based computing?” The chairman stared at me blankly.
“The next big thing in technology,” I explained. “In much the same way that nanotechnology and solar panels have been in the recent past. Anyway, the wage bill tends to be the largest expense for small, medium and almost certainly implausibly-sized companies and so, as Access-to-Time points out, poor time-keeping can have a significant impact on their costs.
“On top of this, it says other costs can be incurred, such as lost business due to unanswered telephone calls or poor face-to-face service because of lack of staff availability. Ever keen to help, the company even offers examples of poor time-keeping - being late for work, leaving work early without advising one’s employer, going on numerous cigarette breaks and taking longer-than-expected lunch breaks.”
“That is helpful,” nodded the chairman. “None of those examples would ever have occurred to me.” “Well, exactly,” I nodded. “So, in response to this, Access-to-Time has launched uAttend, which enables smaller businesses to monitor their employees’ time at work using fingerprint technology.
“It seems the biometric technology cuts out any debate about the time employees spend at work and the cloud-based computing element helps keep the price low and makes the whole thing more accessible. Anyway, I suppose the only problem for you would concern how so much of your workforce is of the non-human variety.
“So you’d be covered for the primate element of Scam, but the only other animal with fingerprints of which I am aware is the koala bear, and you don’t have any of those on your staff, do you?” “No - that would be ridiculous,” the chairman replied. “Koala bears make terrible investment managers.” “But your chimps, parrots, meerkats and so forth are the Boltons of the animal kingdom?” I asked.
“I believe our investment record speaks for itself,” said the chairman primly. “Volumes,” I nodded.
“Look, I think we are getting sidetracked here,” said the chairman. “I don’t need my non-human fund managers to be fingerprinted - or wing, claw or leaf-printed for that matter - because, first of all, they never leave the building.
“And, second of all, the only smokers in the office are the four beagles we rescued from that animal laboratory.”
“Beagles?” I said. “Let me guess - UK equity income?” “Well, obviously,” the chairman nodded. “What is more, I have taken the precaution of having all the animals micro-chipped … hey - you don’t suppose … “
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