The Swedes are certainly pioneers when it comes to unconventional HR policies.
Two years ago, Sweden introduced a six-hour work day experiment at a health care facility in the city of Gothenburg to much global attention.
In January this year, however, the Swedish government revealed that the experiment could be scrapped, due to higher operational costs brought on by the need to hire more workers for covering work shift gaps.
Still, this did not stop the country from going ahead with another unorthodox, and potentially controversial workplace first.
It was reported yesterday (April 3) that local start-up hub Epicenter had been injecting microchips into employees since January 2015.
150 workers have been implanted with microchips that allow the companies that employ them to track their every move.
The workers volunteered to have the microchip, which is about as big as a grain of rice, implanted for free.
Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and chief executive of Epicenter told: the microchips inserted into employees hands would simplify life.
With the radiofrequency identification chip, they’ll be able to open doors and use office technology like photocopiers and it can even pay for lunch at the office cafe.
You can do airline fares with it, you can also go to your local gym ... so it basically replaces a lot of things you have other communication devices for, whether it be credit cards, or keys, or things like that.
Chips can also be programmed to hold contact information and talk to smartphone apps.
These types of microchips have been used in humans and animals before and means people don’t need to keep track of multiple passwords and PINs because it will all be installed on the inserted chip.
Conceptually you could get data about your health,you could get data about your whereabouts, how often you’re working, how long you’re working, if you’re taking toilet breaks and things like that.
The chip could compromise security and hold a lot of private information.
So then the question is: What happens to it afterwards? What is it used for? Who is going to be using it? Who is going to be seeing it?
All of that data could conceivably be collected.It can also reveal employees’ purchasing habits, daily activities and other details they might want to keep private.
