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Control and Surveillance at Work Place

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Professor University State Date Due Control and Surveillance at Work Place Abstract The new technology in the world has changed the way organizations are managed across the world. This includes the management of employees as well as the traditional means of operations at work. The misuse of company assets, workplace mishaps, violence, robberies, attacks, and reduced productivity are some of the reasons why control at a working place has been recommended. The enhanced tools and the increased risks have called for increased control and surveillance and have also expanded pressure between employer’s management rights and the employees’ privacy. Both the employer and the employees are concerned whenever there is constant monitoring of their activities. This essay seeks to discuss the issues surrounding monitoring, control, and surveillance at the workplace. The current practices will be explored and discussed to understand the concept of this matter. Also, this paper will provide suggestions, discussions, and different arguments asserted by other researchers and scholars for professional, social, legal and ethical issues. Introduction The increased innovation in technology is characterized by controversies in employees’ monitoring. According to Mills and Ungson (2003), the traditional means of controlling and monitoring employees has changed tremendously. This includes the way HR departments focus on managing employees as well as the overall operations of organizations. Every company is mandated to monitor the behavior and activities of employees in the working environment while every worker should allow such controls for effective professionalism and the assurance of ethical and privacy standards. The privacy of every employee is a datable concern in the human resources management considering that the employer has various techniques to employ. Voicemail, GPS tracking, monitoring of telephones, computer terminals are some of the advanced techniques that employers apply in controlling a working place (Fernandez, Castilla & Moore 2000). In the assessment of technology, electronic monitoring has played a significant input in collecting information, storing, analyzing and reporting the same to the management. By using technology in monitoring employees, the supervisors of organizations can determine whether their employees are utilizing their time accordingly in the working place or they are engaging in other matters. Such technologies include some software which enables the managers to access the websites being visited by the employees. This may include the use of cameras which enable the supervisors to follow the activities of an employee at a workplace. In most cases, employees don’t like constant monitoring. They view such controls as a restriction on their rights and liberties. However, its purpose is to protect the interest of the employer against the behaviors of the workers. It is also designed to inculcate a sense of responsibility in the employees. As asserted by Manzoni, and Barsoux (2002), when employees understand they are closely followed up they tend to adhere to the laid down procedures lest they get caught up in the wrong. Privacy at the Workplace Privacy is an important aspect of every person. It is understood as the ability of every person or group to keep their personal affairs and lives out of public access and to manage the flow of their personal information. As provided by Kovacs (2015), The European Convection in the article 8 provides rights for human beings. It is provided that everyone has a right privacy of his family, life, correspondence, and home and to be respected. The United Nations’ covenant provided that nobody shall be subjected to unlawful or arbitrary interference with his correspondence or home, family, privacy, and to unlawful attacks which include his reputation and honor (Goldsmith 2000). In this regard, everyone is protected against such exposures. The use of privacy policies, telephones, internet, and E-mail have become part of operations in the current organizations. Such policies safeguard the resources of a company being relevant to communication and technology and internet. The policies of many employers require that employees should follow the setup guidelines to the latter. The policies are designed to meet the purposes of the business depending on its nature, communication method and information type. Such privacy issues are keenly applied thereby giving room for effective operations in business by controlling all information regarding the company, employees and the customers. In the workplace, ICT is applied to implement the recommended privacy policies. Such applications are highly restricted and are organizationally oriented. In this case, employees are only allowed to use technology for their official duties at work. Enabling such compliance is not an essay task. Therefore, organizations make use of servers with updated firewalls that allow access to specific applications and websites which are approved by the information technology security personnel. In this case, employees are given access to authorized websites and intranet. As observed by Naito (2011), some strict organizations deny employees the ability to access public emails and personal browses such as Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Reasons for Control and Surveillance Customer and Employee Safety The current business environment is characterized by increased attacks, workplace safety issues, workplace mishaps, violence, robberies, damages and associated liabilities. Such dangers expose the employers, customers and the employees to risks thereby calling for the organizations to lay down mechanisms of monitoring the place of work. Certain systems such as remote worker monitoring are being used by organizations to monitor employees working in isolation. This is done by the use of telephone and other wireless devices with a standardized server location. Such devices can sense emergencies and alert the security personnel thereby enabling quick response guided by the laid down emergency codes. Responsiveness, deterrence and the enhancement of the ability to conduct investigations are the core objectives of setting up such measures. Investigations and Workplace Liability As provided by Pynes (2008), organizations are prompted to monitor the working environment due to possible legal liabilities that may befall them. These liabilities may arise as a result of the misuse of computers by employees or risky misconducts which may expose the company to risks. Surveillance and control play a big role in ensuring that incidents of theft, harassment, safety among others which may require investigation are properly covered. In this case, all the stakeholders in the organization are protected against such incidents including employees. Claims of sexual and racial harassments arising from pornographic or racist e-mails and web browsing are common in today working environment. For example, a law journal paper provided the following cases which form a part of this essay: A petition was filed against Street brokerage which had gathered $70 million from employees who used the site to spread racist jokes that were obtained in its e-mail and was seen to be creating a hostile working environment. In a lawsuit, Chevron Corporation was forced to part with $2.2 million after employees sued the organization for due to an email circulated citing around 25 reasons why beer was considered better than women. Xerox Corporation fired 40 of its employees for storing or sending pornographic materials as well as accessing inappropriate websites during working hours some of who took eight hours per day instead of working. The New York Times fired 22 employees. It was discovered that the employees were circulating offensive-mails which included pornographic materials and sex jokes. Dow Chemical Company fired 50 of its staffs and disciplined 200 extra for abusing e-mail privileges which included displaying photos of naked women, off-color jokes, violent images and sex acts. After another month, the company dismissed 24 of its staffs and disciplined another 235 more for the same behavior at its Texas plants. In 2001, a ministry oil natural resources (Ontario’s) disciplined 66 employees. Unfortunately, six employees were fired for storing, viewing and transmitting pornography materials and other immoral images. After an investigation in 2003 a total of 542 employees were implicated (Hessing & Summerville 2014). Systems and Network Performance A faulty system may cost an organization many hours, loss of productivity of the workers, loss of revenue and customers, and a remarkable damage to the company’s reputation. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that network performance is constantly reviewed and backed up. The performance of a business depends to a great extent on the efficiency of the system's network. It is a concern for every responsible management to raise concerns about the network bandwidth traffic. This includes slowdowns that may be caused by heavy downloads by employees, using and sharing large video and audio files, large volumes of private e-mails and internet surfing. Moreover, such activities may lead to the introduction of viruses that would eventually attack and affect the network. Employee productivity According to Davila, Epstein, and Shelton (2012), many companies invest in sophisticated software and computers for employees, PDAs and other devices that enable a proper flow of work. This motivates organizations to avail controls over the use of such devices. If proper controls are no settled, the company will end up losing the value of such investments. Also, it is highly likely that employees will misuse their working hours exploring unauthorized avenues. For instance; Livingstone (2002.) reported in the year 2000 by Angus Reid Group that employees in Canada used 800 million working hours per year on private internet use. A survey disclosed that employees who had access to the internet at work were online on an average of 8 hours per week 2 of which were for private use. Another survey was conducted and showed that 25% of employees spent 10-30 minutes per day surfing personal sites. 22% spent 30-60 minutes surfing private sites. Astonishingly, 12% of them admitted using 1 to 2 hours while 13% spent more than two hours per day surfing internet for personal purposes. These surveys form a strong concern for the management of employees at a workplace thereby calling for the need to establish monitoring and control mechanisms. However, the privacy and the rights of the employees must be safeguarded in the process. Employee Control and Monitoring As established by Chenhall (2003), the control and monitoring of employees have become a crucial role in the management of organizations. In a workplace, employers should develop strategies for developing their company, set goals, and pursue the means of making the profit. All of these processes require a critical aspect; the management of the workforce. The employer should set up a system that enables him to know whether the employees are productively working or not. This includes monitoring their behavior, performance, personal activities, working hours and restroom break among others. In today’s technological world, employers are turning to digital means of controlling and monitoring the workplace. However, traditional means should not be overlooked as human contact always strengthens a working relation. In this regard, employee monitoring software has proven to be helpful. Sometimes it helps to inform the employees that they should take precaution in the workplace because they are being monitored. This would increase their sense of responsibility. As noted by Brown and Heywood (2005), employers are using various means of controlling and monitoring their workers. These include the use of active badge systems, e-mail, wiretapping, undercover operatives, eavesdropping, investigators, spying, computer monitoring and video surveillance. Video Surveillance Employers use video surveillance in the workplace for monitoring the activities of employees, behaviors, and performance through the cameras. The cameras are located in obvious and open places while some may be secretly installed. In most cases, employers install fisheye cameras to avoid being noticed by the employees. The employees are left concentrating on the visible cameras without knowing there are others secretly installed for surveillance and monitoring. These cameras provide important information to the employers which could be used in decisions making and for reckoning some employees. Computer Monitor This is a system that helps in monitoring the details of employee’s computer. It is designed in a way that the employer can check the particulars of employee’s spent time on a computer and the output achieved. Also, the employer can track the data processed in a given time. Data entered, the total period the employee was not working on the computer and was idle, as well as what the employee has stored in the computer hard disks and terminals. Depending on the settings, the employer can also access received and sent emails, attached documents, external media and used portable hard drives. Others are keyboard strokes, moving and deletion, copying, modification, reading, creation, printed documents, uploads and downloads, online searches, accessed websites as well as duration, time, date, and frequency of visit. Such a system provides the management with detailed information of the employees and may provide a record for performance, behaviors, and professionalism. In some case, the employer may choose to use this information in appraising the employees, promoting or advising. Spying This is another important aspect which some employers utilize. It is done when the management decides to spy on you to get relevant information. In some cases, the management may assign someone including your best friend to spy on you and give back the feedback. In this case, the employee being surveyed is not aware of the arrangement. Eavesdropping and Wiretapping According to Ciocchetti (2011), wiretapping and eavesdropping are means used by some employers in monitoring their staff. In most cases the phones used by the employees to make private calls are tapped and the calls recorded. In other cases, the calls made to the clients are monitored for quality control purpose. In other cases, the employer monitors the details of calls in a workstation to get information as to who answers most of the calls. This because when the responsibility of answering calls may be delegated to several individuals some of them may be too lazy to work and leave the duty to a few ones or a single responsible employee. In this case, the employer can analyze the calls and make an informed observation. The employer may also decide to review the quality of calls made or received from the clients. This style can be used to train employees where they have lapses as well as improve the quality. In cases of rude employees to customers, the recorded calls can be used for disciplinary purposes. Undercover Operatives In a workplace trustworthy, understanding and communication between employee and the employer are very important. Some employers go to an extra level of trying to understand the position of their employees as far as these matters are concerned. This includes employing an undercover operative who may test you on these issues or follow you in your dealings and talks to understand your standing. E-mail Monitoring The current working environment is full of e-mails as a means of official communication and sending of documents. Individuals may use the platform for their interests or work. The employer is allowed to access the email system being used by the employee at the workplace. He can review the daily activities such as the messages sent and received, the date and time, content, subject and other relevant information. This includes all email accounts such as Yahoo, Gmail and instant, and voice mail messages. Therefore, employees should not think that private internet work at the workplace cannot be monitored by the employer. It is important to note that e-mail system is set in a manner that can allow retention of all the data transacted. This includes the deleted work as every transaction is stored in a magnetic tape meant to be a backup. Also, e-mail data with an option of making private does not guarantee their security. It may indicate that the conversation is confidential only to be retrieved by the employer. This includes private emails. Active Badge Systems Active badges are provided to the employees by the employer in the form of a credit card badge. An employee is required to wear it throughout in the working place. In this case, the movement of employees is monitored by the employer using the fixed unique ID. This badge has a transmitting device cooperated by a lithium battery. It senses the environment via a small network from the server thereby allowing conversion of signals through the LAN. Infrared sensors are placed in the working place and all over the building to track the movement of employees. Therefore, an employer can easily track the whereabouts of the employees to check whether they are working. The system is good as it minimizes movements and the cost of making calls. Monitoring Social Media Most of the organizations have a policy on the use of social media. Employees are guided on what to and not to post on the social media about their employer. Also, they are cautioned against posting unacceptable materials on their private sites which could be located back and implicate the company or endanger its reputation. Compliance building is a website that contains a database that outlines the social media policies for many organizations. Employees should ask from their HR department or the supervisors for the updates on the same. However, many companies orient their employees and update them on the matter regularly. Ethical Analyzing When analyzing the ethical view of monitoring, it is important to consider a case that provides whether monitoring is good or bad. In this case, we shall analyze the theories of ethical principles. Kantianism cites that moral laws should guide the actions of individuals and that such laws are universal. The emphasis is on the states and the intentions (Kant 2006). Goodwill is the only thing in the world that is recognized good without any qualification. Kant provided categories of imperative expressions: I.   Let your actions be guided by the rules of moral laws which are universal II. Let your actions always treat both others and yourself as ends and not as a means to an end. As provided by the first expression it is not ethical to apply computer monitoring because if it were then the universal rule would apply: “An individual should spy on another to ensure her or his benefit.” Moreover, this rule would promote selfishness and greediness which does not agree with the value of goodwill. As regards the second expression, it is wrong to apply computer monitoring. This is because organizations monitor their employees to earn more profits but not as ends. Discussion Through monitoring, control and surveillance by the employer, the privacy of employees are affected to a great extent. However, employers must have some privacy and regulations policies to safeguard the company. It is important for an employer to control and monitor the activities of employees with decency. Most of the employers believe that employees who think or know they are being monitored by either the company or through other means which include colleagues are likely to perform. In most cases, employees don’t devote the required working hours to the employer thus calling for a need to control and monitor them. The following part involves discussing social, professional, ethical and legal issues that affect workplace privacy. Legal Issues As discussed by Smith and Faley (2001), the advance in technology has seen many employers the tendency of interfering with the privacy of their employees. The laws protecting and governing the privacy of employees in the workplace is drastically evolving. However, they are lagging compared to the speed at which technology is upgrading. The employees have various protections which include: unreasonable disclosure of someone’s privacy, detect and prevent crime, the existence of facts, no e-harassment and discrimination, appropriation of one’s private accounts which include; telephone, social networks, conversations, voice mail as well as protection from isolation. The advancement of technology continues to open up other avenues for legislations which guarantee the protection of employees. When discussing workplace privacy and legal issues, it is important to acknowledge the available legislations on the same. As provided by Westin (2003), Electronic Communication and Privacy Act (ECPA) were introduced in 1986 while the Act for data protection was established in 1998. Human rights Act was created in 1998 while ECPA ACT 1986 extended the restrictions from the government on wiretaps to include electronic data by US Congress. ECPA title provides protection the transmission of electronic communications either oral or wire. Also, it provides the procedures for granting search warrants with strict legal requirements. ECPA title 2 protects communication data stored in the form of messages in computers and other electronics. The use of traps or pen register, transmissions of electronic or wire, routing, signaling information, addressing, and record dialing without a court order is prohibited by title 3 of the ECPA. Additionally, employers are prohibited from intercepting telephone calls, faxes, and e-mails. Despite such prohibitions by ECPA, employers are allowed to monitor and access this information provided that an employee has consented to a monitoring policy. Such consents are given when employees accept the set policies of allowing search and monitoring of internet usage. It is agreed that the devices in the office including access to the internet are provided to execute official duties. Therefore, employees don’t expect privacy since they have nothing to conceal. The consent policy should also indicate that the computers and other devices in the office are only to be used for official purposes. In that case, employees are prohibited from accessing unauthorized internet or email for personal purpose. This includes downloading pornography, copyrighted information, harassing or offensive communications, among others not allowed. As observed by Warren (2002), the provision of data protection Act (DPA) from the UK on data processing on identifiable people was enacted in 1998. This is legislation that protects personal data. Employers are required to follow these provisions when accessing employees’ data. The Act provides that data must be: •   Processed lawfully and fairly. •   Required for legal and specific reasons. •   Relevant, adequate and not excessive. •   Precise and up to date. •   Not to keep longer than it’s necessary. •   Processed according to individual’s rights. •   Securely kept. •   Should not be transferred to another country without protection. According to human rights Act, human beings are born equal and free and equal insights and dignity. Individuals are endowed with conscience and reason and therefore should have a spirit of brotherhood towards one another (Nordenfelt 2004). Article 3 states that every person has a right to security, liberty, and life. Therefore, employers should treat their employees as human beings when monitoring them. This legislation requires employers to disclose to their employees the areas of monitoring and surveillance that will be in place. Also, they should endeavor to allow employees reasonable privacy. This can be done by excluding some areas such as restrooms from surveillance. Social Issue The privacy enjoyed by the employees in the workplace is very limited. Through surveillance and control, the privacy of the employees is highly affected due to constant monitoring of the employer. As a result, many employees free insecure carrying out their privacy in the workplace however little it is. Additionally, the inclusion of electronic monitoring systems pressurizes the employees to work extra mile lest the employer catches them resting. In the long run, employees feel they lack freedom coupled with repetitive tasks and heavy workload without time to relax leading to stress. Such kind of treatment by the employers is a violation of freedom of expression and human rights. Failure to control the situation may lead to employee’s addicts of drugs in an attempt to relieve tension. In other cases, it may result in depression, problems at home as well as the society. Conclusion The control and surveillance of in a workplace is not an illegal and random act of employers. It is true that employers are regarded responsible in case employees fail to act acceptably and ethically including any illegality that may arise. Therefore, it is recommendable for the employer to monitor his employees and restrict them from committing illegalities in the company. Also, the employer pays his employees for the entire hours of work. This gives him the right to control how the hours paid for are being utilized. It can only be done by establishing a policy that governs the behavior and commitment of an employee in a workplace. In this case, employees should understand that the employer is only trying to evaluate whether his workers are devoted to the company. Sometimes employees might perceive that employers’ only concern is profit maximization. Some may think that the employer denies them relaxation time that may result in mental health and stress problems. Such perceptions and assumptions may adversely affect their privacy and performance. In this case, employers should come up with a friendly policy that allows reasonable relaxation. This includes providing employees with a relaxation time and a room for that matter. Finally, it is crucial for both the employees and the employer to promote honesty among them. This will enable employees to open up to their employers when things are not working well for them. A good atmosphere should be provided where employees are not straining to relax. Recommendations In most cases, it is known that employees don’t devote themselves fully to the work of the company. Therefore, it is crucial for the organizations to ensure there are efficient controls and monitoring. The following recommendations could be helpful; Establish policies that allow proper and responsible utilization of workplace technologies. The employer should make it clear to the employees that surprise surveillance can be conducted on their internet activities at any time. This should include all devices in the workplace. Employers should communicate to the employees that when using surf internet in the workplace, they are representing the company and not themselves. Therefore, the employer has a right to access all the data therein and block some sites as need be. Also, he can invoke legislation against an employee who commits illegalities in a workplace. An employer may introduce a personal phone that can be used by the employees at the workplace. Such use should be limited to emergency and necessities only. This can provide a good relationship between the employer and the employees. Employees should be alerted that anyone accessing unauthorized sites sand e-mails in the workplace shall be subjected to disciplinary. This would deter the wicked ones from attempting doing it. 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