Just started this past January and I'm wondering if it's always this way or is the Covid economy just that bad?
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@3lpx: It's supposedly only active in online meetings. You can mute the microphone during the meeting if you're not speaking and if you choose you can cover the camera on the laptop. When you're done for the day simply close the laptop. It's not really a big deal.
If Honeywell is monitoring your video or audio while you are working from home it is a Felony. I there building they can do it...in your home.....Major Class action suite. So I doubt they are that dumb.
@2fdo: Yes they use monitoring software and you might read the computer use policies about what Honeywell states they can do when you use their equipment (like laptops). Installing third party software on Honeywell equipment to try and defeat the monitoring software may give you an unwelcome result. They use words like the employees who abuse this policy are subject to disciplinary procedures up to and including discharge. It's a slippery slope if you get caught.
A constant drum beat of how to s***w over employees never stops.
@1wyp - can you make public how you were made aware of this microphone and webcam remote monitoring? Any managers out there want to confirm this practice? I suspect there is no written policy on how to remotely monitor your employees, but I hear there is a push to try to get managers to get their employees to turn on web cams for teams meetings, and that there may be incentive for various percentage participation.
I see Rapid7 Insight Agent in task manager with lots of memory used, so googling this resulted in explanation that this is corporate spyware for monitoring employee’s working from home.
Employees- try ordering Mic-Lock microphone blocker, to block this practice when not in active meetings.
And electrical tape or webcam cover slide blocker to block webcam when not in use.
Would be interested in OP comments on how he became aware of this practice.
It's the way Honeywell does business and COVID-19 just accelerated the latest round of fear and loathing. Honeywell is listening and watching you via your laptop if you're with. The easiest way to stop this is to put a sticky note over the camera and then disable the microphone and camera in the boot screen. Activate the it on startup by pressing F2. There's any easy guide for the rest of the instructions that can be found with an internet search.
If you are still early in your career and have options, you would be best served in another industry. It is just a hand to mouth existence now, with very little to offer.
Avoid Honeywell! These are all normal practices.
If you decide to take the job just know that you will be heavily monitored, to include listening to business AND private conversations through your laptop speakers while wfh and/or randomly turning on laptop cameras, without your consent, to spy on you.
Happened to me and several others I know.
I've been here since 2008 and trust me, it's the absolute norm. Some years worse than others, but always cuts- if not to personnel, to benefits. Usually each year they find a way to cut both. I've seen it play out for the last 12 years. Like clockwork.
Matilda: Is life always this hard ? . . .
Leon: Always Like This.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib-3Xd0IZwk
I've been here since 2006 and it just keeps getting worse. The COVID pandemic has added to it but this is just a HON leadership wet dream; they can take and take and take without any questioning. They rule by fear telling people "you're just lucky to have a job"! Yea, sure.
Dang! I'm surprised you are still there...I joined in February and got RIFd 2 weeks ago. The new people and old employees are the most vulnerable. I never got to be put into the performance blocks haha
It has been this way since I joined HW in 2007 and is now becoming the new norm for the company. Now more than ever, HW will have their hands in all employee pockets to cut costs. Most companies say their people are their most precious resource, well it really is true at HW. Leadership see their people as ATM machines. They may deposit some merits and MIP from time to time (when convenient), but they debit more than they deposit. Go read Dave’s playbook, Darius is a good student and following it to a”T”. 2019 was a good year for HW, who benefited from it? Not the employees, Darius and his leaders definitely did. Don’t hang on for as long as I did hoping for things to change, it is getting worse and It will continue to.
I been here 25 yrs and the behaviors have just continued to escalate every year. It became unbearable when the ge buyout failed. Bonsignore was destroyed by that failure. Next was Allied signal .. another disaster with an older work force and entrenched fixed costs. Honeywell vanishes the day allied bought the company. Only option was to buy other companies to save the business.. which is what cote did.
The answer to your question is yes. It is the norm. If you are young, i would take an offer from any other aerospace company that offers full grad school reimbursement. If you wait ten years and get laid off, you will need that degree.
Work yourself to death and after thirty years you'll have no pension, no 401k worth talking about, no family life because you worked 50+ hours a week, no assets because the pay was sh–, no worthwhile benefits and the certainty that you can be let go at any moment for little to no reason. Welcome to honeywell.
Oh, and we are a software and services company now, don't like making things because it takes too many resources (people). You should come up with the next/better ZOOM app and let Honeywell have all the profits. You will be congratulated with a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with a few words on it, may get moved out of the 5 block (for a little while), maybe get your name on the home page if your boss can possibly understand what you did.
It's all pretty simple. Management is committed to support a premium stock price by always INCREASING (not just maintaining) profit margin. Since they can't control revenue/sales and it has rarely increased fast enough to suit, they will cut costs until the numbers work out right.
The first year I started they did furloughs. They did a lay-off last summer and I thought that was crazy. Especially when the butt kissing ceo touted the entire year about how great we were doing. You’d think a guy who spends more time underneath the presidents desk than in his own office would have seen it coming. No pun intended.
RIFs, site closures, travel and training freezes, and furloughs have all been the norm since I joined. Before COVID-19, one would have gotten the impression that the company was actually in trouble and not just being cheap.
Well the aerospace industry isn't faring too well. No surprise to see some reductions. Put in 50+ hour weeks and I'm sure you'll do fine.