Monitoring : Monitoring A Monitoring Program

once again brought to light the various concerns and complaints that this contentious area inevitably generates.  The idea of monitoring employees’ conversations has a certain Orwellian darkness that encourages accusations of privacy invasion and corporate spying.  Indeed, some companies have taken this too far – some reportedly even requesting their employee’s Facebook login details.  However, by and large the concept of employee monitoring – when done appropriately – seems to me to be relatively

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

As with any employer policy, a phone use policy should be reasonable, should strike a balance

A company's privacy protection can limit the company's liability in many ways. By monitoring employees work and progression, a company can ensure that the employee is being productive. By monitoring an employee's productivity, the company can ensure that employee is performing all their job duties and performing them correctly. If performed incorrectly, the company may be held responsible. Companies can also monitor employees to ensure all employees are using the company's assets for company related reasons and not conducting any personal or illegal activities that can

According to the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, "an employer can monitor their employee to ensure adequate job performance and supervise customer contacts."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

In this article Evans summarized privacy law in the American workplace, and also scholar Mathew Finkin painted a dramatic picture of the surveillance under which many many American employee work. Moreover, Finkin mentioned in this article that 34% of American employee are monitored continuously with regard to their email and internet usage privacy. In addition, He also pointed that The problem of employee privacy and productivity becomes more significant as the boundaries between formal and informal places of work blur. Employee monitoring can also be conducted in other ways that were not possible until very recently. For example, some cellular telephones have built in global positioning systems that enable employers to track the

First, many companies are now providing their employees with laptops and cellular devices. Employers have a right to monitor any equipment that is provided to employees. Employers feel they have this right, since they are paying for the equipment. Many companies now consider the use of company equipment for personal use, a violation of the code of conduct that has been established by the company. The use of personal devices should not be monitored.

According to the survey of Internet Usage at Work, a quarter of workers spend an hour or more online at sites unrelated to their work, 22% said 30 minutes to an hour was distributed to entertainment. Nearly 10% promised they never did something not relevant to their jobs (Sharma & Jatinder, 2003). Thus, surveillance in workplace can monitor workers’ performance and reduce the waste of time. Furthermore, monitoring employee’s work has a positive effect on work distribution. Surveillance also can achieve the goal of fair work distribution and show how an employee’s performance is evaluated (Mason, Button, Lankshear, Coates, & Sharrock, 2002, cited in Watkins, Coopman, Hart, & Walker, 2007, p. 175). As a result of which, the employee’s enthusiasm is stimulated and the productivity of business will be significantly improved. The opponent argue that excessive monitoring, however, can do harm to employees, because privacy can be compromised if the disclosure of employees’ information was not authorized, and it may cause leak of private information (Ball, 2010). The significance of appropriately managing this issue recently drawn the public’s attention by the brutal cyberattack perpetrated against Sony information in late 2014. Sony employees’ private information was broadcasted to the third party (Ellis, 2014,

Search Alert will provide businesses with technology to track employees time used on the internet and their browsing data. With this information, employers will be empowered by knowing what their employees are using their time for. There is direct competition for Search Alert in the B2B market. Search Alert will differentiate through high quality reports and an easy to use system. To set up Search Alert’s service, a specialist will be sent to the company to connect all the devices. This will lower the switching costs for the employers. Search Alert will provide an easy to read and detailed report for employers. With this system in place, workers will be more likely to stay focused when on the internet because they know their employer will see their productivity. Search Alert will hire a B2B salesforce that will make a relationship with the customers to make sales. The salesforce will begin in the northeast portion of the United

Hammer Wines has a vast array of websites being used by employees for both personal and work use. Cyberslacking is present amongst all employees, with websites aimed at socialization and productivity which both highly used. This, however, is hard to monitor as some sites – such as Facebook.com or Deals.com - are used in the companies Sales and Marketing department, but also used in recreational down time by most, if not all, other departments. It is important for Hammer Wines to implement a strategy to monitor all Internet usage. Receptionist work productivity remained high in correlation to time spent on internet, however, it was obvious the Cyberslacking was overruling the IT department, as they spent 120 hours over the duration of the week on a games and entertainment website.

It has been proved that computers help a business ease its activities such as record keeping, monitoring employees and word processing among others. However, the use of computers in the workplace breeds concerns such as security threats and privacy issues. Computer systems are not only prone to hackers but also other security issues that may compromise the company’s activities and social integrity. The research will probe into some of the advantages and disadvantages of computer surveillance.

An important area of corporate interest is employee policy and the use of the internet. Employee internet usage at work may need to be investigated from time to time, and also may be based on how many employees that use computers with internet capability to complete daily work, spells potential for misuse. With a specific interest with the following points, electronic media policy must be in place to help safeguard the company and guide employees. The following six points are areas of interests and will be addressed in following sample policies.

Attackers who get a hold of this information can use it to break into the system and launch an attack

Employers believe employees are taking advantage of the Internet while at work to access inappropriate websites such as shopping, gambling, pornographic material, and illegal downloading. Therefore, employers are searching for ways to reduce Internet exploring and increase work production, and remain within the state and federal guidelines (Young, 2011). To combat these issues, monitoring technologies are put in place to make employees more productive during company’s work hours. Monitoring technologies are classified as the use of computerized system that automatically collect, store, analyze, and report information about how an employee is performing his/her job (Wen, Schwieger & Gershuny, 2007). This helps companies to track their employee’s Internet movements, obtain detailed information (Wen, Schwieger & Gershuny, 2007), and protect the privacy of their company. In return, employers hope this will limit or eliminate employees from extensive use of the Internet.