⏎ Words Summary from News
For browbeaten office workers, liberation — or, at least, a better-mannered boss — may be nigh. A growing category of software is using AI to detect workplace bullying, raising the prospect that toxic managers could soon have fewer places to hide. One such platform, Smarsh Inc., which serves the Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Morgan Stanley and other financial companies, promises to “uncover hidden intent,” according to its website, so employers can spot bullying and harassment “even when it’s subtle.” Global Relay Communications Inc., another software provider, says its systems ensure “bad conduct is spotted and escalated instantly,” allowing companies to locate “patient zero” before a “contagion” of toxic culture takes hold. The software can, in theory, flag bad behavior by anyone. But it’s especially significant when the offender is a manager: someone with the power to assign work, block promotions and make daily life unbearable. The Misery of Modern Management</p><p class="summary-lead"> • Being a CEO Totally Stinks Now • The Great Middle Management Purge • Americans Really Don’t Trust CEOsRead more from the series here. The first corporate surveillance software boom started in the late 1990s, when Wall Street regulators ordered companies to preserve their accumulating mountains of email in case of misconduct. The sector later expanded beyond financial compliance to help businesses investigate discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying; demand grew when the pandemic pushed more white-collar work online. “As I like to say to clients, ‘Don’t open a door you’re not prepared to walk through.’ You’re going to have to be ready to take the steps necessary to respond. That’s where I think you might see a little bit of reluctance.”
Key Takeaways
- One such platform, Smarsh Inc., which serves the Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Morgan Stanley and other financial companies, promises to “uncover hidden intent,” according to its website, so employers can spot bullying and harassment “even when it’s subtle.” Global Relay Communications Inc., another software provider, says its systems ensure “bad conduct is spotted and escalated instantly,” allowing companies to locate “patient zero” before a “contagion” of toxic culture takes hold.
- But it’s especially significant when the offender is a manager: someone with the power to assign work, block promotions and make daily life unbearable.
- While forms of employee-surveillance software have been around for decades, the advent of large language models marks an inflection point.
- It’s almost like you have to read between the lines to catch that somebody’s doing that, and we can do that now,” says Donald McElligott, vice president for compliance supervision at surveillance software company Global Relay.
- One on the West Coast is analyzing every indicator it can — including small workplace infractions like not completing training on time or failing to regularly change passwords — to create something like an employee social credit score, says Susan Frank Divers, a consultant and the former chief ethics and compliance officer at Aecom, a provider of global infrastructure services.
Insights & Analysis
- But it’s especially significant when the offender is a manager: someone with the power to assign work, block promotions and make daily life unbearable.
- Employers are more able than ever to use AI to fight bad behavior, but adoption hasn’t exactly been swift.
- But she says she expects AI will become more central to the workplace misconduct-prevention playbook in the next few years by “helping organizations investigate and respond to that misconduct in a more timely and, hopefully, effective manner.” Cost is a major concern: Smarsh’s largest customers process 30 million to 40 million messages a day on their platform, and running each through a system that relies heavily on LLMs can be expensive.