Is IT firm Cognizant tracking the time employees are spending on laptops?

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A growing number of information technology (IT) companies are using tracking tools to measure employee productivity.

Cognizant has reportedly introduced new software to track its employees’ behaviour on office laptops and computers.

The firm, along with Wipro and LTIMindtree, is reportedly doing so using tools from ProHance, a workforce management platform.

However, Cognizant has since denied that it is using these tools to track or evaluate the individual performance of employees.

But what do we know about this practice? How does it work? What do employees have to say?

Let’s take a closer look.

Understanding Cognizant’s move to monitor employees

According to reports, Cognizant is attempting to chart the productivity of its workers. The tool tracks how active employees remain on their laptops, which applications they use, and which websites they visit. Cognizant reportedly introduced this system around a month ago.

Under this system, employees can be declared ‘idle’ if no keyboard or mouse activity is detected for more than five minutes. If an employee’s laptop remains inactive for 15 consecutive minutes, then the employee will be marked “away from their desk”. Reports also suggest that the new tracking system will be rolled out gradually, with its introduction varying from team to team.

Biggest worries of employees and privacy advocates

Employees are feeling uneasy about this move by Cognizant, as they fear the tracking will be used as a tool to evaluate their performance in the future.

Some staff stated that they had been asked to complete the full ProHance course as a mandatory module with a consent click. Employees also said the ProHance training module required them to confirm their acceptance by clicking “I agree”.

An individual told Mint, “We received a mandatory course, which includes a user acceptance. We had to click on ‘I agree’ to complete the course.”

They also worry that even if the tool is not formally part of appraisal systems today, it could quickly blur the line between ‘workload visibility’ and ‘micromanagement’.

Privacy advocates have emphasised the importance of determining whether data should be disclosed, and how it should be stored and used. They argue that the practice raises concerns about work culture, suggesting that professionals are being treated as data points on a dashboard.

Critics have countered this concept, saying that “constant tracking can damage morale and push people towards performing for the tool instead of focusing on outcomes”.

Key objectives behind this micro-tracking

However, Cognizant has clarified that the process has been implemented to identify and address inefficiencies.

“We occasionally use various productivity measurement tools — a common industry practice — in select business process management or intuitive operations and automation projects, at the request of customers. The purpose is to help better understand the client process steps and related time metrics to assess process design inefficiencies,” a Cognizant spokesperson told Mint.

It assured employees that they would not be tracked via ProHance even after giving consent. The report states that the reason behind tracking is to ensure that employees work a fixed number of hours, despite breaks. Cognizant and its clients reportedly aim to increase productivity, and this micro-tracking allows them to get a clearer picture of how employees work.

Cognizant is not alone. TCS, French IT major Capgemini, and HCLTech are understood to rely on Sapience to gauge employee productivity. Sources told The Times of India that employees of Capgemini log their work hours through an electronic timesheet application and Sapience Buddy, which tracks data on work patterns and productivity.

With inputs from agencies