A tool that watches you work, and knows when you don’t. is rolling out software that tracks productivity on company-issued devices, including for employees working from home, and can flag a working day gone idle. And if there’s no other record of attendance or proof to back it up, this could mean a day’s leave getting docked.
The move comes as information technology (IT) firms on employee effort in their quest for productivity and returns from artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.
According to an email sent to employees earlier this month, reviewed by Mint, Wipro is installing TimeScope on company-issued laptops in order to help employees track the time spent on websites. This software tracks time spent by employees on certain systems. Wipro kicked off use of the tool around May, installing it for 5,000 employees, and is now expanding this to other employees.
With this move, the Bengaluru-based firm has become the latest IT firm to track employee productivity with new forms of digital tools, following Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd that have reportedly installed activity monitoring tools on work laptops of certain employees.
In an email sent earlier this month, Wipro attributed this to employees having a better track of their time.
“TimeScope is an insights tool that gives you easy access to your digital activity data and provides a high-level view of how Wipro-issued devices are being used. It enables associates to view and self-assess total time spent on their devices through a dashboard,” read the company’s TimeScope FAQ memo accessed by Mint.
The company would track login duration of employees and also “identify inactive periods”. The company said the software would provide “insights to improve operational planning.”
An email sent to Wipro on Monday went unanswered.
Employee activity would also be available on a dashboard accessible to the associates as well as their managers. For now, this software will be installed on Wipro-issued laptops and desktops in India. It will be installed for all associates across fixed-price projects, billable and support roles, and also to those not deployed on projects.
The company would track “active time” of employees, which refers to time spent on softwares such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Chrome, or other work-related tools on a Wipro-issued device.
If no activity is reported on company-issued laptops, a leave may be triggered, linking lack of digital activity to employee leaves. However, the employees can contest leaves that are inaccurately depicted.
Attendance systems may trigger notifications if no device login is detected on a scheduled working day, prompting timely updates such as leave or TMS corrections to maintain compliance,” read the company’s FAQ memo. The internal missive added that leaves may be deducted when records indicate there was no login activity on a Wipro-issued device, no approved leave, no swipe records at a company office location and no client-site visit recorded for the relevant date.
The company, however, clarified that it does not track personal activity, keystrokes, or record screen content.
Wipro’s move on the activity tracking tool met with a mixed response from employees.
“Our timesheet may show that we were logged in for a certain amount of time, but TimeScope shows another data point altogether. We have to raise these issues time and again,” said an employee on the condition of anonymity.
For now, the company has differentiated regular attendance with the time logged in through TimeScope, and said the latter would be used to track employee effort.
“TimeScope reflects only Wipro-issued device-based digital activity time. Timesheets capture total work hours and remain the final record for effort reporting,” read Wipro’s memo.
A second employee in-charge of planning the tool’s rollout said this was done on the request of clients and to ensure employees don’t slack.
“There were two key reasons why we had to roll this out. Firstly, many employees used to login to their work IDs through their phones and they would be on vacation during this time, rather than actually working on their projects. Secondly, many clients wanted to track employee productivity, which is why this is being rolled out,” said the second employee on condition of anonymity.
At least one analyst attributed this move to better tracking of productivity ahead of the rise in automation tools and growing number of outcome-based projects.
“Earlier, billing was done based on punch-in hours. Now, as companies are moving towards AI implementation, outcomes are now tracked where billing is done on milestones rather than time spent at the office. For this, IT firms and their clients need employees to work more efficiently, which is why IT firms are doubling down on tracking productivity,” said Amit Chandra, vice-president at HDFC Securities.
A second analyst said productivity tools are being used to track returns of AI on investments.
“Providers need evidence that AI investments are actually translating into reduced effort and improved delivery economics, rather than simply adding another layer of technology expenditure,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive of HFS Research, a Massachusetts-based IT research and advisory firm.
“If AI and automation allow an IT services provider to deliver a $100 million contract with 700 people instead of 1,000, the economics of that contract changes dramatically,” Fersht added. “The provider can expand margins, offer the client a lower price, redeploy the excess capacity into growth areas, or reduce headcount. In today’s highly competitive market, we are increasingly seeing all four happen simultaneously.”
The move comes as Wipro’s operating margins for two quarters in a row. The company reported 16% in operating margins during April-June, down 130 basis points from the year-ago period.
The company is also facing growth blues, as it reported three straight years of revenue decline. Wipro ended the last fiscal with $10.48 billion in revenue, down 0.3% from FY25, as many of its large clients shifted to its peers at a time when the country’s $300 billion IT industry is challenged by AI and geopolitical uncertainty.