"It's getting harder to outsmart the digital minders at work.
The rise of remote work and, in turn, employee-monitoring software sparked a boom in mouse and keyboard jigglers and other hacks to help staffers fake computer activity -- often so they can step away to do laundry or a school pickup.
Now some companies are cracking down on the subterfuge, deploying tools that can better spot the phony busywork.
The latest salvo in this productivity-tracking arms race came in a recent regulatory filing from Wells Fargo. In the disclosure, first reported on by Bloomberg News, the bank said it had fired more than a dozen employees in its wealth and investment management unit for allegedly simulating keyboard activity to create the "impression of active work."
Wells Fargo declined to say exactly how it detected the suspicious activity or whether the workers were remote, only that it "does not tolerate unethical behavior." Across Reddit and other social-media forums, the report sparked angst, and questions.
"Anyone else concerned?" wrote one Reddit user. Another, more to the point, asked: "Can IT detect my mouse jiggler?"
The answer, increasingly, is yes. The share of companies using some kind of electronic worker-surveillance system surged during the pandemic, reaching nearly 50% in 2023, according to a survey of nearly 300 medium to large employers by research and advisory firm Gartner. These systems, which track how active workers are at their computers, have long been able to detect some installed software or extra hardware.
More of these software systems, such as Teramind and Hubstaff, now also use machine-learning tools that can identify repetitive cursor movements or irregular patterns in someone's computer activity. In addition, some worker-monitoring software can randomly scrape screen images to check whether screen activity is changing as the computer mouse moves.
Most mouse jigglers on the market are detectable, says Ilya Kleyman, Teramind's chief growth officer.
A typical jiggler works like one sold under the brand Tech8 USA for $19.99 on Amazon -- essentially a mini turntable that swivels the mouse in different directions. On Tech8 USA's site, it claims to be undetectable since it doesn't require installing software on a work computer and shifts the mouse around at seemingly random intervals and speeds.
Retailers also sell devices that can manually tap a key or mouse at random.
Neither technique is likely to foil Teramind's algorithms, Kleyman says. "It won't look like normal human mouse cursor activity that regularly clicks, drags, etc.," he says. Plus, the software can flag artificial activity in general, such as when a cursor is active over the same static Wikipedia page for hours on end.
Diana Rodriguez, marketing director for Tech8 USA, says such surveillance tools' detection capabilities can vary significantly and sometimes incorrectly flag a person's work patterns as suspicious or unproductive. In customer surveys, most people say micromanagement is the main reason they buy the company's devices.
"Our objective with products like the mouse jiggler is to provide tools that help employees navigate these pressures," she says.
When Teramind examined an anonymized sample of 1,000,000 workers at 5,000 corporate clients late last year, it says it found 7% of employees appeared to be faking work activity on their machines. It has since fine-tuned the algorithms and rerun the test, this time finding over 8%.
"The true number is almost certainly higher," Kleyman says, since the company found no false-positive results when it investigated the findings. That doesn't mean employers always act on the information. Many are looking out for the most egregious cases of faking work activity and often use findings to examine work loads and how people are managed before taking disciplinary action.
"Nobody wants to fire workers," Kleyman says. "It's the worst possible outcome."
Other work hacks, such as starting up a PowerPoint presentation or other slideshow to keep a computer screen awake, can also be detected, says Hubstaff CEO Jared Brown. The Hubstaff platform takes screenshots of employees' screens, so the repetition of screenshots from the same PowerPoint presentation would raise a red flag to employers.
He recalls one instance flagged by Hubstaff's software: An employee had set up a mouse jiggler to run for four to six hours a day on a work computer. The employer investigated further and fired the staffer after finding the worker was spending some of that time playing videogames on another device, Brown says.
"Even with a few people doing it, the costs add up," he says. "It's enough that employers want to put a stop to that."
Legally, employers have broad latitude to use tracking tools, though they have prompted privacy concerns among worker advocates.
There's also evidence that over-surveillance can be counterproductive. In a survey of 2,300 professionals by job-review site Glassdoor last summer, 41% said employer monitoring of their work devices made them feel less productive.
Gabrielle Judge, a career influencer who goes by Antiwork Girl Boss on social media, provides links to a few mouse jigglers on her Amazon Storefront. She thinks they're useful when remote workers finish up early or need to take care of an errand, but says they should be used wisely.
Ultimately, she advises workers to ask themselves why they need to use a mouse jiggler in the first place. Often, it's a sign they're in a workplace that values busyness over actual output.
"I would beg to question if that's a good working environment to begin with," she says." [1]
1. Bosses Bust Workers With Mouse Traps. Bangalore, Sanvi. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 July 2024: A.12.
