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Workplace privacy esssay
Law review employee privacy rights at work
Employee privacy in the workplace essay
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Employee Privacy Expectations and Employer Monitoring
As much as many people are seeking to be self employed, we cannot deny the fact that a large proportion of the working population is employed and has to deal with matters pertaining to employer-employee relationship. One such issue is the extent of monitoring of the employee by the employer and the employee’s expectation of privacy. In fact, most people prefer self employment due to the satisfaction they get by being their own boss and hence having full control of what they do with resources such as time and office equipments. Though most labor laws advocate for employees’ right to privacy, DelPo (2009) notes that there is a limitation to this right and that employees need to realize that the office belongs to the employer and he has a right to ensure that employees are not misusing the company’s resources.
With the advent of internet technology, the problem of employee monitoring and privacy has heightened as employers constantly want to check that employees are ethical in their use of the internet at the workplace. Privacy and monitoring issues in recent past have become a major challenge in the human resource department of many organizations with many causing legal battles between the employer and the employee. This is an extra cost that every manager works hard to avoid. This is why human resource managers need to address the level of employee privacy and employer monitoring that the company allows to every new employee to set the right working relationship from the start.
Taking the example of a director of human resources in a large company that has extensive use of the internet. To prevent misuse of internet during work hours, he has a duty to instruct the employees ...
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Dempsey, J. S. (2007). Introduction to Private Security. Retrieved from:
http://books.google.com/books?id=qQo7oDMSVXgC&pg=PA228&dq=need+for+employee+monitoring+by+employer&hl=en&ei=IT9XTqzYN4LkrAfu-PG-Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=need%20for%20employee%20monitoring%20by%20employer&f=false
Spinello R. A. (2006). Cyber ethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace. Retrieved from:
http://books.google.com/books?id=NEyg1T9-dD0C&pg=PA24&dq=Spinello, +R. +A.+(2006).+Cyberethics+morality+and+law+in+cyberspace+(3rd+ed.).+Sudbury,+MA:+Jones+and+Bartlett&hl=en&ei=VVZXTpSUNY_IrQf82KSNCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
In Fitbit for Bosses written by Lynn Stuart Parramore she talks about how bosses want to start monitoring their employees. Parramore shows her discomfort with this idea. She thinks that “big money seems poised to trump privacy”(Parramore). Which basically just means that for bosses is that money is over everything even privacy. Allowing bosses to monitor their employees is dishonest and manipulating.Some researchers have also found out that increasing surveillance has caused the decrease of productivity. Researchers warned them that the data can have big errors and people that look at the data that the fitbits can cherry-pick the information that supports their beliefs and ditch the rest of the information that leads to racial profiling. “Surveillance makes everyone seem suspicious, creating perceptions and expectations of dishonesty.” Workers will become dehumanized“(Parramore), it prevents them from experimenting and exercising the creativity on the job.” A woman from California filed a suit against her former employer because he forced her to to install a tracking app on her phone. She had to have it on her phone 24/7 or else she would
The topic for week 3 of Computer Ethics was based upon an IT security policy in relation to a company’s ethics. The discussion board began with how training as well as education needs to be implemented throughout the business to ensure confidential information is not sent out without encryption or following other procedures put in place. This not only maintains the integrity of the company, but also makes the employees accountable as well. This can be accomplished by a well defined security policy and procedures which outlines the plan of action and the implementation. Many agreed a well documented plan needs to be kept updated as well as conveyed to the rest of the staff so everyone knows what their role is. In addition, Dawan pointed out that a security policy is a “living document” which is one that is forever changing to try and keep up with hackers. Many also agreed it is imperative everyone in the organization needs to be trained on the security policies at an organization.
...anization cannot ensure who use telecommuter computers and what happen in remote location. It's also too difficult to ensure telecommuter follows the Non-Disclosure Agreement. There is a way that IT department can use to prevent this from happening. They can control the remote computer settings, and monitoring employee perform on the computer. The deep Freze program can be used to prevent telecommuter to change computer settings. Other than that, keystroke recorder can monitor activity telecommuter so that they engaged with the company work. The last categories of technical support is communication and logistical support. For the communication, IT department responsible to provide support for telecommuters by operating communication and groupware tools for business such as e-mail, instant messaging, and chat room that provide means of communication.
In an age where instant access to information has influenced the privacy workplace model, which once prevails over what were inalienable assumptions of privacy is no longer a certainty in the workplace. Some companies require employees to sign confidentiality agreement to protect their patents, formulas, and processes. There are instances where companies dictate a “no compete” clause in their hiring practices, to prevent an employee from working for competitors for typically two years without legal implications. While these examples represent extents, employers go to protect their company’s privacy; companies do not go to that extent to protect the privacy of their employees.
While it is obvious that most employees are against electronic monitoring, the use of electronic monitoring contributes to increased stress levels in employees. While the advantages derived from electronic monitoring far outweigh the disadvantages. Through the use of employee monitoring, companies can save money in overall operations cost by weeding out those employees who don't pull their weight, and cut down on employee theft. By monitoring employees, it is possible to measure their performance and see if they are meeting standards.
Townsend, A. M. & Bennett, J. T. (2003). Privacy, technology, and conflict: emerging issues and action in workplace privacy. Journal of Labor Research, 24(2), p. 195. Retrieved October 19, 2004, from EBSCOhost Database.
In my opinion, employees should not be able to use the internet while at work. The computers and networks are business property and are solely used for business transactions. Thus, employers have a duty and a right to ensure proper usage of any, and all, equipment. If employers decide to, they may choose to monitor the usage of the internet to ensure the property is not abused. According to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC 2510, et. seq., (www.law.cornell.edu/uscode), federal law allows employers to monitor business calls, however, personal calls are an exception. Under the federal law and employer only has the right to monitor a call until they realize that it is a personal call then must cease monitoring. In the case of Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co., 704 F.2d 577, 583 (11th Cir. 1983), the court dictated that, "...a manager must cease listening in on an employee call once the call turns personal". When businesses first started using the internet, they did not contemplate developing new technology policies and were very liberal as to the usage of the internet. Eventually allowing liberal usage led to abuse of equipment and work time. Today, people check personal emails and facebook messages (among other social networking sites), take care of online banking, shopping, surf the net leisurely, and chat online. Employers have noticed this distraction severely impacted productivity and performance. Studies show, "Currently, as many as 26 million workers in the United States are monitored in their jobs, and this number will increase as computers are used more and more within companies and as the cost of these monitoring systems goes down" (DeTienne, 1993, p. 33). "By the end of the decade, as many as 30 milli...
Terms and Laws have gradually change overtime dealing with different situations and economic troubles in the world in general. So then dealing with these issues the workplace has become more complex with little or no rights to privacy. Privacy briefly explained is a person’s right to choose whether or not to withhold information they feel is dear to them. If this something will not hurt the business, or its party members then it should be kept private. All employees always should have rights to privacy in the workplace. Five main points dealing with privacy in public/private structured businesses are background checks, respect of off duty activities/leisure, drug testing, workplace search, and monitoring of workplace activity. Coming to a conclusion on privacy, are there any limits to which employers have limitations to intrusion, dominance on the employee’s behavior, and properties.
The function of Human Resources in corporations usually includes the use of metrics and analytics through collection of data on the employees’ efficiency. HR metrics are used to quantify the cost and the impact of employee programs and HR processes and measure the success or failure of HR initiatives (Missildine, 2013). The company is able to track trends and changes with the data collected as it provides for measurement function that helps with HR planning. HR metrics measure the value of the time and money spent on HR activities in the company and together with HR metrics is the HR analytics which is the process of combining data mining with business analytics techniques to analyze human resources data (Missildine, 2013) and provide an organization with considerations for the effective management of employees and quickly and efficiently reach organizational goals. The main issue lies on whether the managers know what to measure and how measurement must be conducted.
In today's work environment, workers are expected to know more than ever before. With the growing of technology comes more knowledge that end-users must know, so it is important for workers not to be distracted by unethical practices. However, with technology also comes a more defined sense of communication, which can be good or bad. This improved communication can not only encourage unethical behavior, but it can discourage it as well. This paper discusses how technology can encourage and discourage unethical behaviors, it explains how these behaviors can shape the type of work environment that a company promotes, and it identifies how Human Resources (HR) uses technology to influence culture.
We cannot blame modernity for unfiltered and unprofessional behavior; the Internet can be blamed for poor conduct, and impulsive behavior. It makes sure that behaviors are discoverable to the public domain thanks to the multiple repositories like the cloud, smart phones, and tablets. Furthermore, it blurs the fine line between off-duty activities, in many occupational settings in the workplace. The inharmonious storm of the digital world in the workplace results to consequences that are applicable to employees, and employers in labor laws (Herbert, 2013).
During the past decade, the internet has revolutionized and changed the way organizations do business by offering rapid communication systems and enhanced information access and innovation of technological advancements have created a brave new workplace. Further, the internet enables organizations to decrease expenses, reduce product life cycle time, market goods and services more efficiently (Anandarajan et al, 2000). However, with these kinds of benefits, the internet provides employees with a technique
You get to work, login, check your email, and examine the values of your stocks. Have you done something wrong? Should your manager care about what you do with those couple of minutes? Hypothetically, if you consider 48 working days per year, with 40 hours per weeks (totally 9,600 hours of work a year), then the daily five minutes of personal internet usage mounts to approximately 24 hours (three working days) of wasted company time. In a capitalist economy, such inefficiency impedes the goal to maximize profit; therefore, compelling businesses to turn to rigorous surveillance to discourage inappropriate use of company resources and to promote productivity. As the American legislative and judicial culture has generally upheld companies’ proprietary rights to monitor their employees at the expense of employees’ privacy, civil libertarians have protested to what they claim to be direct violation of the employees’ right to privacy, which the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment implicitly guarantee.
But, these laws always changing, depending on the work setting or policies set by any specific organizations. Because there are so many different work environments, each claim of privacy has to be evaluated based on the actual conditions of the workplace (Smith & Burg, 2015). This is why policies must be set according to the CEO needs. If the organization does not allow the use of the internet for any personal use, than the employee must follow such guidelines. This eliminates employee privacy right violations, because the policy will informs them of the monitoring during the hiring
For the past decade or two, Internet is a channel that promotes an access to information and communication in the global world. It is one of the most powerful tool. Now-a-days, an access to the internet has become easier than ever, whether we are using a computer, phone or tablets. There is no doubt that people are spending more and more time online. Because many people use the internet for their career and education, it is hard to differentiate between the normal usage and excessive usage of the internet. We all use web at a normal level, but when it becomes compulsory for survival it becomes an addiction.