Microsoft Dynamics 365 Monitoring and Controversy in the Workplace
TapTechNews August 3rd news, the tech media TheRegister published a blog post on July 31st, sharing the investigation report [PDF] of the Austrian non-profit research organization CrackedLabs, showing that European employers use various services to monitor employees, represented by Microsoft's Dynamics 365 service.
The investigation carried out by the CrackedLabs organization belongs to the large-scale project of Surveillance and Digital Control at Work, and it is found that many European employers monitor employees by tracking users' mobile devices and using software and mobile apps.
The report focuses on conducting in-depth analysis with Microsoft's Dynamics 365 service as a sample, but also indicates that there are quite a number of such service providers, including Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, IFS (Sweden), Nomadia (France), OverIT (Italy), Praxedo (France), ServiceMax (USA), and ServiceNow (USA), etc.
The report points out that Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides complete algorithm support, which can closely monitor the working conditions of employees and track many contents including work content, working time, and working location.
The report believes that the effect of this kind of monitoring means that due to task-based micromanagement, the workers' discretion, autonomy, and sense of purpose are weakened.
This transformation also accelerates and intensifies work stress, with little respect for the differences in workers' abilities, lifestyles, and work practices.
Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher at CrackedLabs, said:
Employers can obviously use this information to put pressure on workers and ask them to speed up their work and so on. These systems are used to micromanage work - telling workers where to go, which customer to visit, when to arrive, what tasks to perform, and the target time for each task.
Microsoft questioned the statement that its software uses artificial intelligence to make performance-based recommendations, arguing that its software can help field service personnel complete their work more efficiently, and pointed out that employers should comply with applicable laws related to monitoring and privacy:
Field service personnel have to travel to multiple locations ever y day to provide services for different products.
Dynamics 365 Field Service and its Copilot function are designed to help field service personnel schedule, plan and provide on-site maintenance and repairs in the right place and at the right time, and provide the right information and workplace guidelines on their devices to complete the work.
Dynamics 365 Field Service does not use artificial intelligence to recommend individual employees for specific jobs based on past performance. Dynamics 365 Field Service is developed in accordance with our principles of responsible artificial intelligence and data privacy statement.
When customers use Dynamics 365 Field Service, they should be responsible for and comply with all applicable laws, including legal provisions related to accessing employees' personal analytics and monitoring.
Lili Cheng, vice president of Microsoft's business applications and platforms, said:
One of our key goals is to maintain the dignity and experience of workers.
TapTechNews attaches the official introduction of Microsoft as follows:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an integrated suite of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications provided by Microsoft, combining various functions such as sales, customer service, field service, operations, finance, marketing and project service automation into one platform.