Privacy and Your Job: Whose Business is it anyway?
Telling employees about a company monitoring policy is the first step in a successful employee-monitoring strategy. Educating employees about why monitoring is important to them and the company’s future is the next. MedZilla explores today’s corporate monitoring approaches, why some companies cross the line using monitoring to intimidate rather than safeguard and how employers can keep the balance between respecting employees and watching for practices that could affect the corporate bottom line.
Marysville, WA (PRWEB) November 7, 2003—Businesses that monitor their
employees—whether with cameras in the workplace, taping phone conversations, or
tracking employee e-mail and Internet activities—might be accused of being Big
Brother. Yet many are turning to tools that allow at least occasional
surveillance of the workforce. The reason, explains Timothy A. Dimoff, president
of SACS Consulting and Investigative Services, Inc., is that “one of the biggest
thefts taking place in corporate America today is theft of time and because of
that, just like any other crime or waste or inadequacy, you have to fix
it.”
Monitoring, however, doesn’t have to be a turn-off in the workplace,
and experts offer several ways that employers can monitor their employees
without losing their respect or loyalty.
Monitoring today: its benefits
and pitfalls
Issues with employee monitoring have changed. Elizabeth
Ahearn, president and CEO Radclyffe Group, Whippany, NJ, a training and
consulting firm that helps companies deliver world-class service through their
call centers, remembers a time when corporate legal departments shunned employee
monitoring for fear that employees might claim privacy invasion. But the
argument eventually won out in the courts that employees had no reasonable
expectation of privacy in the workplace.
Technological advances have
also changed the way corporations view privacy, says Jim Harper, editor of
Privacilla.org, a Web-based think tank devoted to privacy. While some compare
e-mail monitoring to phone surveillance, the two are very different. E-mails, he
says, have much more potential to reach broad audiences and, therefore, do more
damage to a company. It’s almost a matter of good judgment that today’s
employers have some sort of e-mail monitoring in place, he says.
However,
monitoring can go too far, such as when cameras are found in bathrooms and
employers attempt to time bathroom breaks. “I’ve worked in places where about
half the company was involved with watching the other half. It creates paranoia,
suspicion and doesn’t make for very comfortable working conditions,” says Frank
Heasley, PhD, the President and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet
recruitment and professional community that serves biotechnology,
pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science.
Monitoring without crossing the
line and alienating employees is a matter of good judgment, Harper says.
“Employees want to know there is monitoring but don’t want to have the feeling
that someone is looking over their shoulders.”
Monitoring for the right
reasons
At issue with monitoring is the debate over providing better
security and safety for employees, versus doing it to harass or intimidate them.
Employee perception about why a business is monitoring them is critical, says
Dimoff, whose company advises corporations regarding workplace litigation,
conflict and crime.
Dr. Heasley says employers should have a reason to
monitor. “Unless you have cause, you should not go digging around. But,
sometimes, a business’s health or survival depends on the employer monitoring
employees. If, for example, you have good reason to suspect that someone who is
working for you is working for a competitor, undermining your business, damaging
morale or conspiring against you, then it is your obligation to uncover the
wrongdoing.”
Ahearn agrees, saying that a balance exists between
watching and building trust. “Every employee needs to be dealt with as an
individual, as opposed to creating group rules for the few that will take
advantage,” she says. “If a person is meeting their goals, deadlines or doing a
great job, why should employers worry if they spend some time on the
Internet?”
Dimoff disagrees and suggests businesses conduct monitoring
across the board, with everyone subject to equal watching. This treats employees
equally, while catching those who take advantage of the work environment.
Don’t be sneaky
The first step in a successful monitoring
campaign is to tell employees that they are being or might be watched. Employers
should notify employees of this as early as in the job interview; then, have
them sign a document that records their knowledge of being monitored.
Other things employers should do before monitoring employees
are:
- Educate employees about the types of monitoring that you do and
explain the reasons for the monitoring. Present the monitoring issue in a
“what’s-in-it-for-them” format. By arming employees with facts about at-work
e-mail abuse and the understanding that the monitoring is for the success of the
company, they will be much more likely to accept it as part of the job.
-
Make sure that employees understand that all the equipment at work is
company-owned and, therefore, while they are at work, they have no reasonable
expectation of privacy at all times.
Understand that monitoring does not
have to be all bad—and shouldn’t be. Monitoring can also be used to commend
employees on handling customer service issues well or making good decisions.
-Don’t overuse surveillance devices. Video cameras, Ahearn says,
typically should be used for employee safety—not to see who is stealing out of
the mailroom.
Keep the proper perspective
Dimoff reminds
employers that monitoring will not solve the problem of bad management. Fear is
not the way to inspire people to work; motivation with incentives
is.
“…some forward thinking employers actually encourage their employees
to use employer resources to get degrees, connect with their kids, and do their
travel planning from work,” says Nan Andrews Amish, a business strategist with
Big Picture Healthcare (www.bigpicturehealthcare.com), El Granada, Calif.
Dr.
Heasley points out that “Once started, corporate paranoia can be difficult to
curb. Companies who believe their employees are untrustworthy often create an
environment of distrust that provokes the very behavior that they are trying to
avoid.”
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/11/prweb88034.htm