Tech

Managers are using drones to monitor their employees

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Construction workers in Sacramento, Calif., have a new kind of boss: A drone. Unmanned flying cameras help managers watch out for issues that might slow progress of the new Kings Stadium, according to MIT Technology Review.

Drones fly around the structure once per day, creating a 3-D image of the building that managers at Turner Construction can compare to renderings of architectural plans. The goal is to show managers where the project might be falling behind schedule.

Turner Construction spokesman Christopher McFadden said the drones have not created any privacy issues, since they do not fly close enough to individual employees. Rather, the flyover gives a faster, more accurate view of issues that managers might normally address in a walk-through of a construction site.

"If we see on the footage our steel project is behind, our reaction is going to be the same as we were walking the job," McFadden told CNBC. "We'd call our steel contractors, talk through the issues, get back on schedule, and more accurately plan and work for the days and weeks ahead."

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McFadden likened it to a report due for a client at the end of the week: Instead of checking on your progress every few hours or days, your boss can log in and see how many words you've written at any given time.

"We are not monitoring individual workers. We are monitoring the progress on the project generally... a big picture type of angle," he said.

Turner is not alone in looking in to this technology, with other construction companies and agriculture companies using drones to manage large sites, MIT Technology Review said.

Some police forces are looking at the possibility of using drones in their work, The Verge reports. And white collar workers have had their emails and computers monitored by their bosses for quite some time.

While Turner said they aren't monitoring individual workers, researchers are developing a more comprehensive drone system that could see how much time employees spend on each task, MIT Technology Review reports.

For more on the research, read the full story at the MIT Technology Review.

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