I read an article about how Google, with the recent loss of some of it’s brightest minds to companies such as Twitter and Hulu, is planning on creating an algorithm to, in essence, read employees minds. The algorithm would help Google to synthesize employee surveys, promotions and pay to estimate which employees are most likely to quit the company. The goal of which is to predict which, according to the article is:

The purpose of the algorithm is to anticipate their best employees’ dissatisfaction, before their idle thumb-twirling begets a few extra-long lunch breaks and a drawn out process that ends with an all-company email that ends “It’s time to move on.” The company hopes that, with enough pre-warning, it can keep potentially dissatisfied workers from ever feeling that they were potentially dissatisfied.

It’s an interesting goal to say the least, but it brings to mind a few thoughts, such as why does a company known for providing it’s employees with the ability to develop their own projects and work in some of the most interesting and socially significant parts of the internet industry even require this ability?

Truth be told, the low tech solution is much much simpler, simply give management the tools they need to encourage their employees involvement and progression within the company, and even within their career path with other employers. As has been shown by several companies through the years, employees that feel supported in their career are more likely to have a sense of fulfillment in their job, be less likely to leave, and more likely to return if they move to other positions outside the company.

That said, once you take the human factor out of the equation, when management is more reliant on a computer model than actually paying attention to its employees needs, then we are seriously looking at an issue in our society. You’re essentiality telling people how to think. The computer says you are tired of your job, lets bump you over to accounting… If you want to know people, then you have to take the time. You can’t really short change the simplest form of communication…how the hell are you?