How the Algorithm Became Your New Manager
Your boss might not be human anymore. Across warehouses, delivery vans, and even hospital wards, software is quietly taking
Your boss might not be human anymore. Across warehouses, delivery vans, and even hospital wards, software is quietly taking over the job of managing workers. It decides who gets hired, assigns tasks, monitors performance, and sometimes fires people, all without a human ever being involved.
This is algorithmic management, and it’s already here. A recent OECD survey of over 6,000 firms across six countries found that these tools are already commonly used in most countries studied. The question is no longer whether algorithms will manage us, but how we’ll live under their watch.
The Electronic Whip
At Amazon warehouses, the system is particularly sophisticated. Workers carry handheld scanners that don’t just track what they’re doing. They tell them what to do next, how fast to do it, and measure every second they’re not actively working.
One particularly revealing metric is called “Time-Off-Task”. This system tracks the number of minutes that workers aren’t actively working, including toilet breaks. The pressure is relentless. At one facility, roughly 300 people were fired between August 2017 and September 2018 for lack of productivity.
The kicker? Amazon tracks every individual worker’s productivity and automatically generates warnings or even terminations without any input from supervisors. A computer programme can decide you’re not working fast enough and sack you before a human manager even knows you exist.
Beyond the Gig Economy
Whilst Uber drivers and Deliveroo cyclists are the poster children for algorithmic management, the technology has quietly spread to traditional workplaces. Call centre workers have their conversations analysed by AI for tone and script compliance. Office workers find their computer activity monitored, their emails scanned, and their productivity scored.
Healthcare hasn’t escaped either. In some care facilities, algorithms now schedule shifts, assign patients, and monitor how long workers spend with each person. The software treats caring for vulnerable people like a series of timed tasks on a factory floor.
The Problem With Robot Bosses
When algorithms manage people, strange things happen. The software is brilliant at measuring what’s easy to count: packages delivered per hour, calls answered per shift, keystrokes per minute. But it’s terrible at understanding context.
Did you take longer with that customer because they were confused and needed extra help? The algorithm sees you as slow. Did you stop to assist a colleague who was struggling? That’s unproductive time. Did you need an extra toilet break because you’re pregnant or have a medical condition? The system doesn’t care.
Research has found that algorithmic management can increase workers’ stress levels and reduce their sense of autonomy. When your every movement is tracked and judged by unfeeling software, work becomes dehumanising. Studies show that in the absence of relationships offering security, workers experience high emotional stress, anxiety and lower job satisfaction.
There’s also the issue of fairness. Algorithms learn from historical data, which means they can bake in existing biases. Studies have shown that AI hiring tools can discriminate against women, ethnic minorities, and disabled people, often in ways that are invisible and hard to challenge.
Fighting Back
Workers aren’t taking this lying down. Amazon employees have staged walkouts protesting the intense monitoring. European unions are negotiating for “algorithmic transparency”, demanding to know how these systems make decisions about workers’ lives.
Some countries are starting to regulate. The EU’s proposed AI Act includes provisions about algorithmic management, whilst New York City has introduced laws requiring companies to audit their AI hiring tools for bias.
But the real question is whether we want workplace algorithms at all. Yes, they’re efficient. Yes, they can remove some human prejudice from decisions. But they also remove human judgement, empathy, and common sense.
The Future of Work
The spread of algorithmic management represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between workers and employers. For the first time in history, software can supervise humans at scale without any human oversight.
This could go two ways. We might accept a future where algorithms squeeze every second of productivity from workers, where bathroom breaks are monitored and conversations with colleagues are seen as time-wasting. Or we might decide that some things, particularly how we treat human beings at work, shouldn’t be left to machines.
The choice isn’t really about technology. It’s about what kind of workplaces we want to have, and whether efficiency should always trump dignity. Your algorithmic manager doesn’t care about the answer. But you should.
