Employee Monitoring

Introduction

In 1949, George Orwell wrote the book titled ‘Nineteen Eighty- four’, which first put forth the idea of an omniscient government that could see and hear every action and word that its people undertook. Little did Orwell know- or perhaps he did know- that such an idea would, today, be a reality. Satellites can identify and follow any person on the face of this Earth. The content of our very thoughts and intended actions can be made known by what we post on the internet, which is analysed by people working in IT companies like Apple and Google, and even analysts in the defense sectors of governments. Proof of this is seen in the fact that advertisements, which pop up while we are logged into our email accounts, are related to the content of our most recently sent emails. Send a friend an email telling them that you are going for a holiday to Goa and immediately, pop ups relating to resorts and tourist sites in Goa, will appear. ‘Big Brother is Watching You’ literally epitomizes this idea in shows like ‘Big Boss’ and ‘Big Brother’ where a bunch of people are monitored via audio and video equipment, with their consent of course. For the purpose of this essay, we look at the concept of monitoring in the context of the organization, the ways in which it is carried out, the manner and purposes for which it is used, the negative effects of such monitoring, and the optimal way in which it can be carried on so as to diminish these negative effects .

What is it?

Employee monitoring or workplace monitoring involves viewing, recording and reporting what employees do in the workplace (Frayer, 2002). At first, it was carried on through supervisory overview, wherein the supervisor simply observed what the employee did and how he d...

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...needed balance between these two issues, allowing employees to feel that the organization trusts them and is with them, while at the same time, protecting the interests of both, employer and employee.

References

Anderson, N., Ones, D., Sinangil, H., Viswesvaran, C., (2001)., Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology, Sage Publications, Ltd.

Spector, P., (1996)., Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice, 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Landy, F., Conte, J., (2004)., Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Blackwell Publishing.

Available from https://www.privacyrights.org/workplace-privacy-and-employee-monitoring Available on 14th March, 2014.

Available from http://www.iiakm.org/ojakm/articles/2013/volume1_2/OJAKM_Volume1_2pp44-55.pdf Available on 14th March, 2014.