Is It Ethical for Employers to Engage in Practices Relating to Employee Monitoring/surveillance?

Thought Paper: Is it ethical for employers to engage in practices

relating to employee monitoring/surveillance?

To begin discussing this topic I will define workplace surveillance and privacy. Workplace surveillance is defined as various methods used to monitor employees’ activities in the workplace and can also be used to gather information on these employees,^[1] whereas Privacy is the freedom from unauthorized intrusion. ^[2] With respect to the topic at hand, yes I do think it is ethical for employers to engage in employee surveillance as long as the reasoning for said surveillance pertains to the job and not any illegal action that would intrude on the employee’s personal information and activities outside of work.

Often times in the work place, it is assumed by employers that employees are being productive, meeting their objectives and goals and actively contributing to the success of the business. However, most times the results are often the opposite of this assumption. Production is poor, profit is not what was expected, and there is no explanation for the decline. Employees then decide to implement measures that would help to account for the activities being done by employees and to help ensure actual work is being done instead of the use of social media sites, personal emails and other personal activities on the time allotted for work. According to Latto (2007, p. 31-32), A technology analysis firm claimed that between 30-40% of employee internet activity is not work related. These personal activities cause the business to lose a lot of money per year. The misuse of internet not only hampers productivity but also causes other issues such as slowing down computer system response times due to downloads, unintentional leaking of information, viruses and necessities for additional storage to name a few. ^[3] Therefore the implementation of workplace surveillance can help to prohibit the use of the internet for personal reasons and help promote its use for the completion of work tasks. Employees would then be informed of every aspect of surveillance to ensure they understand and are aware of the reasoning for the surveillance and the consequences if not adhered to. With this knowledge and clear understanding, employees are likely to be more productive  and focused on work, in fear of being penalized for non-compliance with the employers requests.

In light of this, there is the risk that an employee may then argue that the surveillance has the ability to infringe on their privacy and personal information. However, the surveillance would be to monitor work activities and internet use on company property, where no personal activities unless authorized should be taking place. It would in no way, form or fashion be used to the disadvantage of the employee or break the confidentiality agreement that would have been made. Therefore any infringement on employee privacy would be as a result of employees not adhering to the regulations given to them.

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