Employee Surveillance Case Study

Introduction
In this assignment, I will explore whether it is ethical for organisations to implement surveillance on its workforce or whether society has the moral right to privacy. In particular, I will reflect on the effects of organisational control and apply my personal experience as a corporate worker. The 21st century has seen a huge transformation in the way society is open to sharing personal information; blurred lines of privacy have meant that organisations are able to legitimise employee monitoring because it is simply seen as a standardised procedure – the norm. Surveillance is defined as “close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017) therefore, do organisations that carry out this activity believe every employee is a potential delinquent? In a modern world where the 1984 phrase “Big brother is watching you” (Orwell, 1949) appears all too familiar, the question remains

One method of control is surveillance as it exercises power over employees who behave better as a result of knowing they are being studied. Organisations use surveillance because they want to “reward effort, intelligence, productivity, and success while eliminating laziness, theft, and failure.” (Moore 2000, page 697). This is supported by Tannenbaum (1967) who believes that control processes such as employee monitoring help circumscribe idiosyncratic behaviours, and therefore keeps employees conformant to the rational objectives of the organisation. Since corporate culture uses surveillance as a control mechanism for its own benefit, Boehmer (1990) argues that this contributes to creating an ‘electronic sweatshop’ whereby workers lose all privacy (Flanagan 1994, page 1257). Here it is questioned how far organisations are willing to go to foster this conformity and value to the