Wearables in the workplace: Why trust must come before data

Jack and Jill are sales representatives at ABC Company. As part of ABC’s health and fitness initiative, all the employees are outfitted with wearables that measure various aspects of their well-being, including sleep hours and quality. Their boss has access to this data, and he notices that Jill slept well last night but Jack didn’t. He decides to use Jill for an important client pitch that afternoon, because he has more confidence in her ability to perform at her best.

This scenario, outlined in a recent WSJ article, is not science fiction. It’s happening today.

Our ability to collect and analyze data about personal health as it relates to workplace performance is growing at a mind-boggling rate. And the “creep factor” is growing at the same rate — the uneasy feeling that your employer is watching everything you do and using that data to make decisions about you. Ethicists are raising concerns about privacy, boundaries, and the appropriate use of personal data.

In the world of competitive sports, this kind of tracking is routine. As Chris Brauer, director of innovation at Goldsmiths, The University of London, said, “Sport science has evolved remarkably in the last 10 years, and we can expect the same from management science.”

I can think of four reasons why your manager would like to see your health data:

• Safety — Are workers being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation? Are machine operators taking drugs that make them drowsy?

• Well-being — Are workers in a particular department experiencing high levels of stress?

• Productivity — How can we ensure that high-value work is being assigned to highly fit individuals?

• Health cost containment — how can we identify health issues at an early stage to facilitate effective treatment and contain costs?

The first two bullets are primarily about the well-being of the employees and the second two about the success of the company, although all four have potential impact on both.

One way to address the “creep factor” is to give employees a choice about how their health data is monitored and analyzed and who has access to the information. The challenge here is that the data is only really useful if many people participate. It’s also challenging to provide choice in an employment situation without some element of coercion. My boss wants to see my sleep data and I say no. What am I trying to hide?

Another challenge is verifying the accuracy of the data. The instrumentation in medical wearables is not perfect, which means that decisions could be made on inaccurate data. There needs to be solid research on the reliability of the data before employers make us of it.

Predictive validity is a related problem. The medical data may be accurate, but how do I know that it predicts performance? Going back to Jack and Jill, maybe Jack is someone who doesn’t need a lot of sleep and performs just fine on four hours. Unless employers can clearly demonstrate a connection between the medical metrics and the performance outcome, they run the risk of being accused of discrimination.

At the end of the day though, the most important element is a culture of trust. If employees truly believe that managers have their best interests at heart and will use the data to help them perform better, improve their wellbeing, and reduce stress, those employees will likely be more comfortable sharing their data. But in many workplaces there is an “us-against-them” culture, which leads employees to be guarded about what they share with their employers. In such a culture, the use of personal medical data could be sinister indeed.

Companies having access to employees’ medical data is nothing new. For example, many companies send their top executives for an annual checkup at a fancy medical center to ensure that the leaders will be able to continue to perform in their demanding roles. What is changing is the amount of detail that is available and the fact that we can see it in real time. Using this data can help to boost productivity and create better workplaces — or it can lead us into the world of “Big Brother.”

If you’re considering using wearables in the workplace, please email me to discuss how best to approach the topic with your employees.