Custom ID cards can be used in many different ways and now bosses can head online to buy them. As well as their more traditional functions, some firms are taking advantage of these items for more advanced purposes. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently noted that the Bank of America Corp is among the organisations using sensors in conjunction with the cards.
It pointed out that the firm wanted to study how its call centre teams interacted and, to achieve this, it asked around 90 workers to wear badges containing tiny sensors that gathered information about their movements and conversations.
Former Bank of America human-resources executive Michael Arena, who helped conduct the study, said: “Surveys measure a point in time – what’s happening right now with my emotions. [Sensors] measure actual behavior in an objective way.”
The use of such tracking technology isn’t without its critics. However, Lewis Maltby, president of an employee advocacy group the National Workrights Institute, suggested that current sensing technologies don’t appear to violate employment laws.
He remarked: “It’s not illegal to track your own employees inside your own building,” adding that the data gleaned could be helpful in improving firm and worker performance.
Meanwhile, Ben Waber, whose firm Sociometric Solutions run sensor studies for employers, revealed that around 90 per cent of the workers asked to wear the special badges agree to do so.
When bosses are on the lookout for ID badges of any kind, they turn to the internet. It is now simple and quick to take advantage of an ID cards template.