Ethics And The Ethical Ethics Of Employee Monitoring

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Introduction Employee monitoring can be interpreted as the following: a method in which an organization gathers and collects different mediums of information on its employees and uses it as a means to track activity. For the duration of this discussion, we will only cover employee monitoring and how it is applicable to IT . We will discuss why and how it is used, the ethical debate (reviewing different schools of thought), and its impact on workplace cohesion with regards to employee / employer relationships. The point of this discussion is to elicit a response for one of the following questions: is this type of behavior acceptable, and if not, how can we develop change to come to a more reasonable solution? Why and how it is used
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The answer will vary from which person you ask and ultimately comes down to a matter of opinion and is subjective; what an employer views as “ethical” and what an employee views as “ethical”, might be two very different perspectives. In the case of the employer, monitoring IT activity could be a deterrent in employees engaging in illegal unethical workplace practices e.g., day trading, misappropriation of company funds, unauthorized use of company assets etc., which ultimately aids in ethical behavior in the workplace. However, in the case of the employee, the argument could be made that to what degree does it become about safeguarding organizational assets, and becomes more of an issue of an invasion of privacy. If an employee is concerned about invasion of privacy or topics surrounding it, the employee should view the company’s AUP to gather a better understanding. According to Yerby, J. (2013), the easiest way companies and organizations convey their policies and procedures is by enacting an Acceptable Use Policy. This policy outlines all acceptable practices and procedures that is expected from employees with regards to IT. If an employee willingly accepts the terms of use, all of the content they have agreed too runs the chance of it being subjected for review, regardless of the employee’s ethical stance on the content being

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