How much should your boss be able to spy on you?

How your boss can watch you while you work is about to change, if the NSW and Victorian governments have their way.

Also this week:

• Tips for aceing an overseas MBA interview.
• Why the big four consultants slashed their grad intake this year (they claim it’s not AI).
• And Patrick Durkin investigates how and when company directors should throw their weight around.

But back to surveillance, where the two most populated states made moves to tighten the reins on nosey employers.

Victoria’s Allan government backed recommendations by a parliamentary inquiry to develop new workplace surveillance protections, bringing them into line with new work-from-home laws announced earlier this year.

You might recall my colleague David Marin-Guzman ’s report back in August that revealed accusations against a company called Safetrac – namely that it was using company-supplied laptops to spy on employees working from home.

That case prompted Victoria to look at how it could update surveillance law, alongside its earlier commitment to legislate a two-day WFH guarantee.

Now, the NSW government is also getting in on the action, introducing its own standalone bill to amend work health and safety laws to protect against “excessive surveillance”, “unsafe workloads” or “unreasonable performance tracking”. It could pass by next week.

Business groups are grumbling about it.

They’re testy about whether the rule change could mean unions get the right to dig through company emails and records.

The new rules also cover how AI is used to track employees, and business types worry the red tape could slow down the country’s AI ambitions. It might make companies think twice about using AI aimed at maxing out worker productivity.

But the Minns government reckons workers have a right to know if AI is determining their rosters, and why. As always, there is devil is in the detail.

Words like “excessive” and “unreasonable” are pretty vague and undefined in the bill. We’ve seen that before. It calls to mind the age-old stoush over the meaning of “reasonable overtime”.

So we shall see.

Meanwhile, if you’re worried about being watched while you work or have any stories to tell, you can use this confidential tip box (not on your work devices!) to ping me. I’m all ears.

Finally, while we’re on the subject of reporting issues at work, I wanted to flag some new research being conducted at Melbourne Business School.

Professor Danny Samson told me this week about a project his team are doing into the kinds of bad behaviour that go on behind closed doors at Australian companies big and small.

They’re looking into the conditions that make a workplace more or less vulnerable to a range of misconduct issues from bullying to bribery. If you’d like to participate in that research you can do so here (again, not from your work device!). I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it and report back with findings.

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