Monitoring and Survellaince of Employees

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.

Employers are discovering that employee emails and telephone uses are starting to have an impact on its business. Therefore, employers are trying to protect the company's investment, by monitoring employees email without being invasive. Employers can use, computer software, which gives the employer the ability to record how much time the employees' spend on his or, her email account, without having to read the employees email

E-mail has rapidly become a staple of the modern office. Currently, two-thirds of employees in medium and large companies in the United States now have Internet access, compared with fifteen percent only two years ago. The availability of e-mail allows for messages to be widely and rapidly distributed, improving efficiency and reducing cost. In addition to being one of the components of the new workplace, e-mail is also the center of a hot privacy debate. Part of this is because, unlike regular mail, which is difficult to monitor, e-mail can be scanned with ease, allowing employers to engage in monitoring at an unprecedented rate, and raising the specter of a workplace free of privacy. As this relatively new technology gains ever increasing prevalence, certain questions

As indicated by some people, the privacy right ought to be extended to workplaces. In the meantime, other individuals feel that this extension would encompass an unnecessary incursion into the managing rights of the management. In a working environment, the right to privacy of employees is a primarily controversial legal topic. This is even more of a concern or of an issue during this age of increased dependence on electronic mail and computers to do business. Because of innovation technology, employers have been enabled to monitor working environment correspondence that happens by means of PCs, for example, messages and Internet utilization. A majority of the employees feel that such observing abuses their privacy rights. Nevertheless, the law does permit it. Some employee activities like private discussions and actual physical spaces at the workplace such as the locked desk drawers are under more privacy protections. Hence, there is a great need for the employers to consider circumstances under which he or she wants to conduct an investigation.

Workplace Surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers do but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees and the employer about the employees right to privacy being violated. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The employees believe the act of workplace surveillance as a hateful act that violates their right to privacy and liberties.

Technology is growing and becoming more prevalent in the office today. Almost everything in the office is done on some sort of technology, and using just paper copies is becoming obsolete. As an employee, one needs to be aware he or she is probably being tracked while using company owned devices. Also, employers need to be aware of what is legal to track. With both sides knowing what can be tracked, it can make the workplace a more productive

Tracking sensors are intended to help companies evaluate their employees and productivity. The ethical issues involved in using tracking sensors begins with the threat to privacy. There is potential abuse that could be taken from employers having too much information and micromanaging their employees. Many employees feel threatened by the thought of being monitored while in the workplace, and being evaluated by tone of voice, communication, productivity and movements. Emerging technology can give a virtual real-time evaluation, and employees are fearful of the accuracy and legal ramifications that this data can place upon them.

Discussion - Workplace monitoring has been there from a long period of time and it is going to stay in the workplace environment, as there will be more technological advancement. The relationship between the employer and employee at the workplace has lead to a stressful situation. As the employees right to privacy gets violated with the advanced technology their relationship and trust in the employer starts getting bad and it puts a negative impact on the employee’s moral. I agree with the argument in the article, when there would be non-stop surveillance of the employees their relationship would obviously become stressful. Hence, it would create a situation of

Workplace surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers’ do, but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers’ to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees’ and the employer about the employees’ right to privacy being violated. The employees’ believe the act of workplace surveillance to be hateful that violates their right to privacy and liberties. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers’ in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The workplace surveillance is helpful in improving the performance of workers or it is contributing towards degrading the performance of workers and their work relationships.

The use of the internet for personal pursuits in the workplace has seen phenomenal growth over the last quarter century. Along with this growth, employers and employees alike have used the internet as a tool to increase profit, manage time and facilitate communications. However, such technological advancement has its issues. The problem investigated is how the growth of electronic monitoring has changed employee expectations of privacy in the workplace.

Dania Afif El-Achmar Companies firmly well-established in a multitude of employee controls and monitoring practices may find it intimidating to consider allowing employees the autonomy to use electronic technologies without surveillance. Employees that are cognizant of employer monitoring may be unwilling to use the electronic systems available in the workplace anymore than is

In today’s working world, there are almost no boundaries anymore between the technologies employees used for business and the ones used for pleasure. In fact, 64% of employees say they use the Internet for personal interest during working hours (Office Slacker Stats, 2015). Not to mention, advances in technology have helped employers utilize new forms of employee monitoring. Employee monitoring has emerged as a necessity to every workplace environment and yet it is still a very controversial issue due to the widespread use of technology. Lim (2002) mentions that,

But some people argue that putting such devices in offices will increase the performance of employees. For example, employees can be distracted by websites that are non-work related. According to a Nielson Media Research study, employees allegedly logged into outlets such as gaming websites and social media networks like Facebook or Twitter. Any kind of viruses or malware could severely disrupt a business’s day-to-day activities; this could become detrimental to productivity and have a knock-on effect on profits. By monitoring employee internet use and ensuring only business surfing is carried out this

As the rapid development of informational technology, a company cannot avoid connections with internet or computer power in order to be successful. The Internet not only provides opportunities for companies to do business globally and to decrease costs, but it also brings a lot of entertainments while shortening the distance among people. The joys of surfacing online are irresistible and then the existence of internet could distract employees’ attentions during office hours, especially of social media. Flynn (2000) says that “SurfWatch Software estimates nearly one-third of American workers ' online time is spent on non-work-related pursuits” (pg.6). By letting employees know they are being monitored can effectively decrease the time and times of using the internet for non-work-related things. Therefore, the company can increase its productivity and then maximum the gain.

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.