Mobile-sensing system makes assessing worker performance easier

Washington: The process to evaluate an employee’s performance can be stressful for both the employee and the employer. To make things easier, researchers have created a mobile-sensing system using smartphones, fitness bracelets and a custom app.
The system works by monitoring the physical, emotional and behavioural well-being of workers to classify high and low performers.
The new mobile-sensing system opens the way for consumer technology to help employees optimise their performance while also allowing companies to assess how individuals are doing in their jobs. The approach can be both a compliment and an alternative to traditional performance tools like interviews and self-evaluations.
“This is a radically new approach to evaluating workplace performance using passive sensing data from phones and wearables. Mobile sensing and machine learning might be the key to unlocking the best from every employee,” said Andrew Campbell, one of the researchers of the study published in the journal of ACM.
In the new system, a smartphone tracks physical activity, location, phone usage, and ambient light. A wearable fitness tracker monitors heart functions, sleep, stress, and body measurements like weight and calorie consumption. Location beacons placed in the home and office provide information on the time at work and breaks from the desk.
The technology builds on the earlier work of a researcher who developed StudentLife, an app that monitors student behaviour and predicts academic performance. The sensing system integrates the off-the-shelf tech devices using a newly-designed phone app known as PhoneAgent that is based on StudentLife.