You might want to think twice before making another personal call
during work hours.
Companies can now buy a service that automatically analyses phone calls
made by office staff, figures out which are for business and which are
personal, and delivers a monthly list of repeat offenders directly to top
management.
"If you're making a 30-second call every morning at about 9 a.m. and
the number doesn't match those used by your colleagues then we can guess
fairly accurately that's your spouse," said Robert Picton, product manager
at South African IT firm Dimension Data.
Picton says that although other IT companies offer call analysis
technology, Didata is the first to translate that information for
managers.
Didata says a company can cut its phone costs by 10-15 percent by using
the 'Guardian' monthly service, not to mention hours of manpower saved
through increased productivity.
Employees might bristle at the thought of managers monitoring calls.
But Didata says the system focuses only on those who run up huge bills or spend hours of work
time on personal calls, and says no one listens in to the calls
themselves.