Four Corporate Practices That May Surprise You – And Displease You

What have those pesky managers at our largest companies have been up to?

In “Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored?” (The New York Times, June 9^th), author Kashmir Hill asked “You know you have a credit score.  Did you know that you might also have a driving score?”  That, also called “telematics,” which “reflects the safety of your driving habits – how often you slam on the brakes, speed, look at your phone or drive late at night,” is supplied to insurance companies from car manufacturers, or “from apps that drivers already have on their phones,” which can include Life360, MyRadar, and GasBuddy.  These tools often have their extra capabilities explained in legal-looking fine print, often unspecifically, such as “we may collect third party data and reports.”  Yet auto insurers have long used personal data, so this is nothing totally new.  In most cases, it can be shut down, or you can choose to do as I did – leave it alone knowing that relaying boring driving habits can only reduce your premiums.  Those more privacy-concerned can dig out this article for much more – it printed to 11 pages.

Another thing I hadn’t seen before, with its absence glaringly obvious, was from Erica Lamberg in Fox Business on July 16^th: “Hot career trend ‘hushed hybrid’ has managers choosing the employees who have flex work arrangements.”  Back in the day, and since then as far as I can see, employers did not seem to care about productivity or responsible behavior when deciding whether to allow workers to stay at home, but, despite official policies banning that, here we have, secretly, better employees being given some privileges.  “Hushed hybrid” can be defined as “managers overruling, dismissing or choosing not to enforce a company’s return-to-office policies.”  Although it is high time that firms used individual assessments, formal or not, to decide who can work remotely, the problem is that those not chosen may feel deceived about the true policy.  It would be better if management could do this openly – if there are no unions involved, it seems like they should be able to.

A few years ago we got publicity about different customers being charged different prices, even when all aspects of the transactions involved were identical or nearly so.  It may be expanding with new developments, as “FTC probes AI-powered ‘surveillance pricing’ at Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, McKinsey and others” (Eric Revell, Fox Business, July 23^rd).  The new method uses “AI and other technology” combined with “personal information… such as their location, demographics, credit history, and browsing or shopping history” “to analyze consumer data to help set price targets for products and services.”  The Federal Trade Commission, along with masses of people buying things, did not like that, and it may be banned.

Workers’ long-time frenemy found the spotlight in “So, Human Resources Is Making You Miserable?” (David Segal, The New York Times, August 3^rd).  HR, which “bugs a lot of employees and managers… seems to have more detractors than ever since the pandemic began,” when it “began to administer rules about remote work and pay transparency, programs to improve diversity, equity and inclusion and everything else that has rattled and changed the workplace in the last four years.”  Those in that department are themselves “aggravated or bummed out,” often because “office behavior post-Covid has become notably less civil,” resulting in them “being called in far more often to referee disputes.”  Employment site LinkedIn found three years ago that “H.R. had the highest turnover rate of any job it tracked.”  With more and more areas causing problems for them, its staff members often call it a “thankless job.” 

Perhaps fuller and consistently honest disclosure of practices, my largest wish for HR during my corporate career, would help their reputation – but that would be neither quick nor easy.  And so it goes with the other three situations.  People are more willing to accept a fair shake when they know the rules, even if they are not as favorable as they would like.  That is the moral of these stories.