Companies Want Managers to Track Your Mood With a Wristband
We know businesses can check our emails and Slacks. Should they be able to check our happiness, too?
One of the biggest advantages of working from home is the illusion of privacy. Yes, your emails, Slacks, Google Docs, Zoom recordings, and — if you have a company phone — calls and texts are all more or less free game for a snoopy employer. And yes, every second you’re on a video call is a second you can’t freely eat a meatball sub in your bed. But even within these parameters, as long as your work gets done and you are responsive, remote workers don’t have to worry about answering doctors’ calls with hushed tones in the stairwell or smiling when you don’t feel like it — a small but powerful vestige of emotional privacy.
Unfortunately, even emotional privacy may be in jeopardy for some stay-at-home employees: Last week, BBC reported on the startup Moodbeam, which produces wearable wristbands with yellow and blue buttons that remote workers can push to indicate when they are happy or sad, respectively. The data is then reported to their managers via a dashboard that includes a “Daily Happiness Score” and allows managers to compare the “happiness ranking” of individuals and teams. Moodbeam’s co-founder Christina Colmer McHugh told BBC that, “Businesses…
