[axiolite]

> There are "teflon engineers" out there who can get virtually nothing done and make one mistake after another, and get away with it for years.

That would be Wally from the Dilbert comic strips...

I have seen that when the employee in question has much lower salary requirements than others, appearing to provide a sort of false economy to management, even as their actual value is entirely negative.

I accidentally solved one of those problems, myself... having stumbled upon evidence a very poorly performing employee was reading articles on the web most of the day, only doing a few minutes of coding and taking some steps to hide logging of this fact (which was actually the part that caught my attention). Setting up screen recording and running it for several days hammered the point home. Said employee at the end of this period conveniently reported running into technical difficulties with their project, necessitating more time to work on it. That nicely drove the point home, putting the final nail in and effectively catapulting them out the door...

[exdsq]

A company secretly screen recording me makes me shiver

[stretchwithme]

"evidence a very poorly performing employee was reading articles on the web most of the day"

Sounds like probable cause for a warrant. Not that employers needs a warrant to use their own property, but to assure employees that they aren't being watched unless there's legitimate suspicion.

[YZF]

A warrant??? I'm not aware of any country where you can/need to get a warrant to "spy" on your employees. In some countries that would be illegal. If said employee manages to do what others do while mostly surfing the web that's great. If they aren't delivering then by all means fire them (ideally with some sort of process to actually let them fix it). I don't see what the spying buys other than the mistrust of employees, the news getting out, and people not wanting to work for you.

[stretchwithme]

I didn't say they needed a warrant. I said the opposite.

[exdsq]

I think this is illegal in Europe or parts of Europe! I’d feel differently if you were told this would be happening.

[mkl95]

I think the general rule in Europe is that your employer may record your screen as long as you know it's happening.

[exdsq]

Which I do agree with, assuming it’s work devices too. But secretly recording devices is just weird.