Introduction
The growing issues with Internet usage in the workplace has become a major concern for employers. Employers are discovering that employees are spending hours of wasted time surfing the Internet and sending inappropriate emails. Employers classify this type of behavior as, “Internet abuse,” and breaking company’s policies. While employees see this type of behavior harmless, employers see this as potential risks to their organization. Previous researched study show employees spend hours surfing the Internet and sending non-work related emails to co-workers, family, and friends. With millions of employees having access to their employer’s Internet, companies are seeing an increase in Internet usage causing potential legal issues and billions of wasted dollars. These issues have also caused loss in productivity and network crashes. To combat these major issues, employers have implemented monitoring technology to help deter employees from using company computer for personal business. Many of these employees are sometimes unaware they are been monitored and are concern with the lack of privacy in the workplace. Employees believe employers implement monitoring systems to make them work harder.
This paper will discuss the Internet abuse by employees and the affect it has the organizations as a whole. Employers and human resource managers are beginning to implement policies and training practices to deter employees from spending long hours on the Internet and more time been productivity.
Internet abuse and monitoring
Employers nationwide feel employees are spending hours surfing the Internet, sending, and receiving inappropriate emails. This has caused low productivity rate for many organizations as well...
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...rkers' every move can boost productivity — and stress. Retrieved from: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/08/business/la-fi-harsh-work-tech-20130408
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An employer also should restrict an employee’s access to the internet or access to certain web sites, or prohibit the use of personal work computers. As a result, there is no right to claim privacy against your employer for monitoring or restricting your use of the internet. Having an internal regulation could avoid the personal use of a computer in the workplace, the employers are the owners of the computers, and they are also the owners of the data transmitted to and from the computers, regardless of the source. Another reason that justifies the employer's ability to control the use of the computer in the workplace is the security of their internal systems. Computer systems can be vulnerable to viruses and other types of technological problems if employees are downloading information and Internet programs, or other potentially harmful materials. Security can also be a problem in that employees can violate the company's confidentiality rules. By monitoring the use of the personal Internet, employers can prevent employees from being the means of disseminating confidential information about the company to the
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
Smith, S. (2002). Rethinking e-mail monitoring in today's workplace. Westchester County Business Journal, 41(12), p. 4. 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...
30 Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2002) Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace? . (6/3/2004)
One type of surveillance is employee monitoring. Many employers monitor their workers’ activities for one reason or another. Companies monitor employees using many methods. They may use access panels that requires employees to identify themselves to control entry to various area in the building, allowing them to create a log of employee movements. They may also use software to monitor attendance and work hours. Additionally, many programs allows companies to monitor activities performed on work computers, inspect employee emails, log keystrokes, etc. An emerging methods of employee monitor also include social network and search engine monitoring. Employers can find out who their employees are associated with, as well as other potentially incriminating information. (Ciocchetti)
Sometimes there is no middle ground. Monitoring of employees at the workplace, either you side with the employees or you believe management owns the network and should call the shots. The purpose of this paper is to tackle whether monitoring an employee is an invasion of privacy. How new technology has made monitoring of employees by employers possible. The unfairness of computerized monitoring software used to watch employees. The employers desire to ensure that the times they are paying for to be spent in their service is indeed being spent that way. Why not to monitor employees, as well as tips on balancing privacy rights of employees at the job.
Many of us use the internet on a daily basis and the expectation of using the internet is that our research and information is private. The reasons why we have expectations of privacy are due to the rules, laws and regulations set forth in the past by cases involving the use of the internet. The case of Smyth v. Pillsbury Co., 914 F.Supp 97 is a prime example of internet use at work and the privacy expectations. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 criminalizes sending or displaying offensive messages on the internet less than 18 years of age. The Economic Espionage Act criminalizes the theft of confidential business information.
Cyberloafing is a prevalent and costly problem for all organizations and has raised social concerns, and in several consequences an illegal or unethical behavior arise in incipient forms of deviant behaviors. Many researchers have defined workplace deviant behavior in different terms, such as workplace incivility (Estes, 2008), counterproductive behavior (Bennett & Robinson, 2000), organizational misbehavior (Thompson & Ackroyd, 1999), dysfunctional behavior (Jaworski & Young, 1992), and cyber loafing (Lim, 2002). The lack of self-control and procrastination (Lavoie & Pychyl, 2001) perceived internet service accessibility, environmental conditions and individual behavioral styles and when employees feel that they are not being treated well, they tend to engage in cyberloafing behaviors (Lim, Teo, & Loo, 2002; Manrique de Lara et al., 2006). In this research, the researcher has included cyber loafing as part of production deviant because the consequences of this activity many times leads to decrease employee and organizational productivity (Blanchard & Henle,
When was the first time you used a computer? When was the first time you used the Internet? While the Internet has existed in some form or another for ten to twenty years, the Internet as we know it is only six to seven years old; most of the people who use it today had no clue it even existed less than a decade ago. Yet now the Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. Many Americans cannot imagine life without a personal computer at home, much less at work. The Internet has led some people to become addicted to surfing the World Wide Web; these "Internet junkies" shun their outside lives in favor of sitting in front of a computer screen ten or twenty hours a day. While these people are the exception, rather than the rule, a large number of people cannot go through a day without checking their e-mail inbox at least a couple of times. The thought is spending a week "off-line" fills many with unease and fear. We have come to rely on computers and the Internet to keep us connected with each other, more so than telephones or television. The Internet has caused a communication revolution, and as such has the power to change society and our roles in it.
While Tolley shares the same basic definition of cyber slacking with both McAulay-Gilbart and Johnson, it is apparent that how the issue is addressed differs to a degree. Tolley (2014) admits that he views cyber slacking to be within the same category as coffee or smoke breaks. In his office, there is “no specific amount of time limit” for these kinds of breaks” (Tolley, 2014). Because of the immeasurable nature of these types of breaks, Tolley (2014) believes that it would be unfair to punish one unproductive activity more than another. Instead, he deals with cyber slacking on a case-by-case basis by focusing on productivity levels and output of employees. Tolley explains that this approach is the most effective within the company. He argues that a case-by-case basis is required due to the nature of the company’s line of work as well as the different positions within the organization such as reception. If an employee’s productivity decreases, the first avenue Tolley takes is to meet with the employee to discuss the recent changes in order to diagnose the problem. The only reason why Tolley will investigate the possibility of cyber slacking is if he believes that to be the cause of a disruption in an employee’s productivity. Through the IT department, he can access the internet history of all of the
For every technological introduction or advancement, there are consequences which come with it. This excludes not those that come with introduction of management information systems in companies. The modern society is entirely depended on information systems. Failure of these systems, today, can be declared as end of humanity. Worse enough is that there is a generational shift whereby future generations will not live without information systems that manage information. However, latest evaluations of the impact of management information systems have proven that there are chances, which are very high, of ethics being abused at the work place. Both the employees and the employers, are guarded by certain cord of ethics which aim at regulating the dignity of everybody at working place; and how far one party can be influential on the other especially on matters pertaining privacy. Profit making goals should not, by any means, overlook the importance of working ethics. This paper endeavors to explore areas of major concern where working ethics are likely to be compromised or have already been compromised at the working place due to institution of management information systems. Nevertheless, this research does not underscore the importance of these systems at the working place. The aim is to expose the negative impacts that might result from misuse of management information systems. These impacts can emanate from either party that forms part of the organization. In this case, mostly, it is either from the employee or the employer.
Ivarsson, Lars Larsson, Patrik. "Personal Internet Usage At Work: A Source Of Recovery." Journal Of Workplace Rights 16.1 (2011): 63. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
United States Department of Labor estimates printed in The Standard.com (2000), are wasted time cost corporations three million dollars a year per each 1000 employees. The article continues: “Where are employees wasting most of their time these days? It is not the water cooler". Companies that want to improve efficiency are looking to rein in Web surfing workers.” In a Christmas 1999 article about electronic greeting cards, ZDNN (1999) reported: “There is rising corporate fervor against opening unnecessary files amid concerns about excessive personal usage among employees.”
In Australia, Employers should implement best practice on how to maintain privacy in the workplace in accordance with the privacy standards set out in the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) (Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website. n.d.). Privacy is able to keep our own personal information private and also able to do things without any electronic monitoring in the workplace. Nowadays, many company increased the usage of technology such as internet and email in the workplace. This can create issues in privacy. When employees’ access to web browsing activities during working hours, the employer can be scrutinized it. Employers take this action due to fear lawsuit if employees act in inappropriate ways. Therefore, the best policy is to explain clearly how is appropriate to use email and internet at work and outline what type of use is prohibited in the workplace. Besides that, employer also needs to ensure the employee didn’t disclose or disseminate any important information to the competitors or