Can employers make you use a camera when you work from home. 25 October 2022 at 9:35AM in Employment, jobseeking & training 58 replies 9.5K views

TELLIT01

How does being on camera all day give the feeling of a virtual office?  Unless the employees have 2 screens set up, one with streams of all their colleagues and one for work, it's just not practical.  Trying to use a smaller amount of a single screen for work would be a pain.

Ath_Wat

Sea_Shell said:

Are you hoping to be able to get away with being less than "publicly" presentable whilst working from home?

In your PJs? 

It must be tempting not to have to bother with hair and make-up at home, unless you have specific meetings arranged.

To have to "dress for the office" when you're not there, would be a PITA.

Is this what this is about?

Why does it have to be about anything other than not wanting things that occur with your home and family to risk ending up on someone's video feed somewhere?

OrbitHeadache

The idea that having a camera on all day at home as part of anyone's job is ridiculous.

I WFH and no one is expected to keep the camera on all day. It's an invasion of privacy.

It smacks of bosses who do not trust their employees and under the guise of "replicating the office" are trying to keep their staff under constant observation.

If they insist on having the camera on use a filter, the beach, the park, anything and point the camera at the ceiling.

elsien

I’d be very unhappy about the situation as well. It’s not the same as being in an office because it’s not an office, it’s not a public space, it’s a private home. 

What people can see is beside the point as far as I’m concerned. It’s nothing to do with having to dress properly or anything else. I just object to being told I must be on camera all day in my own home, whether I’m working or not.

It’s not simulating being in a office. I can hardly yell at someone to make me a cuppa while they’re at it, or catch someone’s eye to have a laugh about something, or have a 5 minute fag break and gossip, or any of the other things that happen in a real office environment. It’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

And I’m equally as baffled by those who can’t see why people might have a problem with the idea. 

Savvy_Sue

Sea_Shell said:

Are you hoping to be able to get away with being less than "publicly" presentable whilst working from home?

In your PJs? 

It must be tempting not to have to bother with hair and make-up at home, unless you have specific meetings arranged.

To have to "dress for the office" when you're not there, would be a PITA.

Is this what this is about?

when lockdown started, we were given 'instructions' on WFH. These did include that we must be properly dressed, and might be zoom called by our manager at any time. 

I'm afraid when it was very hot I was decent, but not wearing anything I'd wear to the office: think bright floral shapeless tent in  very thin cotton. 

I'd also hate having to have the camera on all the time. Is this because I'm not at my desk as much as my manager might expect? Indeed it is. However, I'll be there later than they expect, to make up for hanging up the washing and putting another load in. 

We kept the team spirit alive by having regular 'tea breaks' online. All make a brew, join the meeting, spend 10 minutes getting your cat in the picture, you know the kind of thing ... That's surely far better than a 'meeting' where everyone is looking at their tablet and just working! 

One senior manager I met said that they were still hosting a regular tea break: sometimes no-one comes, sometimes quite a few do. This manager hosts it, anyone is welcome. 

Own_Worst_Enermy

I'm meant to be in a job where you say good morning / good night to each other by teams chat - noone use it or we feel like right lemons but it was brought up in a team huddle we're not even part off.
 
At 16:50 of a day I've found tickets opened and still non actioned in people's name who finished at 16:30 and this is apparently ok too     (it's a 'stats productive' role so it's amazing knowing tickets still live with colleagues who are meant to be finished 20 minutes ago haven't been answered)...... 

It's a right fair environment... 

Longwalker

TBH, I wouldn't wont to work with a camera on me all day

And indeed I have left a job when a camera went on in my work space 

My thought was , I clock in, I clock out, and I work within those hours. If someone ( ie manager ) thought I was slacking, then that would show up in productivity , not if I was having a fart or picking my nose.

I myself refuse point blank to work anywhere where the cameras are on me 

Cameras on the tills, cameras on in entrances, cameras on the car parks - grand, But when the camera is following you about the premise , nope, not for me

Sea_Shell

Maybe you need to somehow "hack" your camera feed and put it on a loop, like they do in the movies.

I wonder how long it would be before they notice you're making the same movements over and over again!!! 


Anyone else read Ben Elton's dystopian book - Blind Faith?    I swear, more and more bits of it seem to be coming true day by day (it was written in 2007)

Scorpio33

If it was me, I would accept the tablet and put the camera on (pointing at the ceiling) and look for another role.

If you have legalities to refuse it or not is irrelevant - the wanting cameras on all day reflects the culture they want to imbed in the organisation. It smacks of micro management and distrust - not a place I could work.

Davearia

Firstly, thanks for confirming that in the eyes of employment law, my employer is totally within their right to make me use a camera in my own home. This was not a rhetorical question I wasn't sure either way and this post clears things up for me.

Secondly, prior to this job I've worked remotely for 7 years in companies who just insist of webcams and cameras where needed like meetings and daily stand ups to update on progress and report any blockers. In those 7 years, I've always been professional and know from my 121s etc that my management have never had issues about me being deceptive let alone where my wife's dresses. Without surveillance I've just done my job as expected. That in my opinion is a reasonable way to be expected to work.

Thirdly looking at some replies to this post, some people feel it's me that has a problem with being on camera and I'm making a big fuss over nothing. Other replies I can them totally understanding how I dread this camera being in my home office, it does smack of a lack of trust. Although everybody else remote working for my current employer on the face out at least seems to have no issues with it, I do.

Lastly, like Ath_Wat I'm in a job market where demand out strips supply and I'm pretty decent at what I do. So I will go ahead and set up this this tablet albeit a very poor angle of me and let my manager know that I'm totally unhappy with it and quite possibly will weigh up my options. January is the purple path for job hunting.

But your help has given me clarity of the situation so many thanks all.