Activity logs and ‘idle’ flags: Cognizant’s new tool sparks workplace concerns

Cognizant has begun deploying activity trackers on company-issued devices, with select teams now using tools that monitor keyboard and mouse movement throughout the workday. The rollout began about a month ago and is currently limited to specific projects, but more teams are gradually being added, according to a report by mint.

The company said traceability is a common industry practice and has been requested by selected Cognizant customers on specific business process management or intuitive process and automation projects. She added that the employees’ consent was taken while they were aware that they were being tracked and was not used to evaluate performance.

The tracking system, ProHance, marks employees as “inactive” after five minutes of inactivity, and marks them as “off” after 15 minutes. While such tools are common in process-driven environments, their wider use has raised concerns among employees about how the data is being used.

Cognizant emphasizes that the tool is client-oriented and not intended for performance evaluation. “We sometimes use different tools to measure productivity, which is a common practice in the industry… based on customer request,” a company spokesperson said. mint. The data is intended to identify deficiencies in the process design, they said.

Despite assurances of consent-based publishing, staff described the onboarding process as prescriptive, citing mandatory ProHance training modules that ended with the required “I agree” confirmation.

talking to Business todayA Cognizant spokesperson said, “We occasionally use various productivity measurement tools, a common industry practice, in managing specific business processes or intuitive automation and automation projects, at the request of customers. The purpose of these tools is to help better understand a customer’s process steps and related time metrics to evaluate deficiencies in process design as part of process transformation efforts. These tools are not designed or used to track or evaluate individual employee performance. The tools are only used with employee approval and are clearly not used to evaluate performance. It has no impact on the composition of the teams involved in these projects and any suggestion to the contrary is incorrect.

A number of IT companies have deployed monitoring measures amid ongoing hybrid work settings and increasing industry pressure to enhance visibility, improve time utilization and optimize production across IT and Business Process Management (BPM) operations.