http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/how-surveillance-changes-behavior-a-restaurant-workers-case-study/?ref=technology
[snip] Most of the public discussion of surveillance technology and its use revolves around the question: Is it spooky or reassuring? But another issue is the effect of surveillance on behavior. And a new research paper, published on Saturday, shows in detail how significant the surveillance effect can be. The paper, “Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity,” is the work of three academics: Lamar Pierce, an associate professor at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis; Daniel Snow, an associate professor at the Marriott School at Brigham Young University; and Andrew McAfee, a research scientist at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers measured the impact of software that monitors employee-level theft and sales transactions, before and after the technology was installed, at 392 restaurants in 39 states. The restaurants were in five “casual dining” chains. The paper does not name the five, but it cites examples of the casual dining category including Applebee’s, Chili’s and Olive Garden. Employee theft and fraud is a big problem, estimated at up to $200 billion a year across the economy. In the restaurant industry, analysts estimate the losses from employee theft at 1 percent of revenue. That does not seem like a lot, but restaurant profit margins are slender, typically 2 to 5 percent. So cutting down on theft can be an important contributor to a restaurant’s financial health. Most of the restaurant industry pays its servers low wages and they depend on tips. Employee turnover is high. In that environment, a certain amount of theft has long been regarded as a normal part of the business. Unethical behavior runs the gamut. There is even a how-to book on the subject, published in 2004, “How To Burn Down the House: The Infamous Waiter and Bartender’s Scam Bible by Two Bourbon Street Waiters.” A simple example is a bartender’s not charging for a round of drinks, and urging the customers to “take care of me” — with a large tip. Other tactics are more elaborate. But monitoring software is now available to track all transactions and detect suspicious patterns. In the new study, the tracking software was NCR’s Restaurant Guard product, and NCR provided the data. The software is intentionally set so that a restaurant manager gets only an electronic theft alert in cases that seem to clearly be misconduct. Otherwise, a manager might be mired in time-consuming detective work instead of running the restaurant. [snip] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
