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Workplace privacy esssay
Workplace privacy esssay
Workplace privacy esssay
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You would think that employee privacy rights only apply to employees that you currently have but it really begins with the hiring process. Companies can reduce the number of labor related incidents during the first step of recruiting by setting up a cost-effective, yet reliable drug testing system. According to Kevin Troutman (2005), "People who abuse drugs are a hazard to companies because they miss work, file more workers' compensation claims, make errors, steal and create safety concerns for other employees". An employer needs to use caution when setting up their system by making sure they are following their state's regulations and using a licensed third party facility to review the results. Unfortunately, a large percentage of employers abstain from this step because they fear that it will greatly reduce their pool of applicants but it could cost them more in the end.
Recent national studies report only half of employers test their employees for drugs, while three-fourths of the drug users in America are actively employed. According to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of Rockville, Maryland, substance abuse costs the employer an average of $19,000 per person in lost production, workers' compensation and medical coverage (Dolan Media Newswires, 2005).
Another problem companies face when interviewing prospective employees is that reference checks are not always an effective way to learn about the candidate. There is no specific statutory or common law right to keep an employment history private or confidential but many employers fear that if they provide negative information about a past worker he or she may sue them for defamation. Even if the employer is in the right with the law, ...
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...your boss standing over your shoulder, you should not be communicating it at all. I really feel that employees need to stand back and look at the situation from their employer's side before getting irate about their privacy rights being violated. If you had taken the time to set up a system of equipment that cost you thousands of dollars, would you not want to keep it safe? If you were responsible for the remarks made by the company joker would you not want to monitor him? If your clients' confidential information was in your hands would you not want to honor their rights?
When I chose this topic, I was going to go at this with the employees' best interest in mind but after learning about the liability the employer incurred I completely changed my direction. I have changed my telephone, email, and IM habits and am more careful about what I say. I hope you will too.
The chapter, Selling in Minnesota, had some disturbing information about the low wage life. As I read, I learned that every place the author went to apply, such as a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot type place called Menards, required the applicant to pass a drug test. The author went out and had to buy detox for $30, but can be up to $60. Also, I learn that 81% of employers do drug test their future employees. I don’t like this statistic, in part because I tried getting a job at Marshall Field’s restaurant and they required me to pass a drug test. Luckily, another employer called me before my scheduled drug screening (which I had planned on passing by being really sneaky and using the urine of a friend of mine), so I took that job offer and everything worked out well. The reason I don’t agree with the drug testing required to access most entry-level jobs, is because the only drugs they actually test for is Marijuana. Cocaine and heroine leave the body within three days, and other drugs aren’t even tested for. So that leaves the most commonly used illicit drug, and one that has the least affect on the user, to be tested for.
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
The Jaffee-Redmond ruling heavily impacted how all organizations and firms deal with staff members’ rights. Today, the legal human resource environment requires that all key organizational professionals know and understand the laws affected by this case. Prospective job candidates who are well-versed in these laws and similar issues can outmaneuver less knowledgeable candidates. Training in current privacy laws are a valuable asset in several settings, such as:
If we don't have an academic degree our privacy gets raped, but if we are able to get a degree America doesn't set up boundaries for us. Although drug testing is an excellent tool to maintain a healthy and safe workplace, it is unfair and unjust to the low wage working class because it targets them. For instance; doctors, surgeons, and even teachers are not required to be drug tested as often as low wage workers.
Don’t put it on the internet, although I guess some people would! “Don Tapscott can see the future coming ... and works to identify the new concepts we need to understand in a world transformed by the Internet.” (“Don Tapscott” Ted Conferences LLC) Tapscott is an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Rotman School of Management and the Inaugural Fellow at the Martin Prosperity Institute. In 2013, Tapscott was appointed Chancellor of Trent University. He has written extensively on the topic of information security in the digital age over the past fifteen years. In his essay entitled, “Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy?”(Tapscott p.117). Tapscott considers a new, emerging theory
In an age where instant access to information has influenced the privacy workplace model, which once prevails over what were inalienable assumptions of privacy is no longer a certainty in the workplace. Some companies require employees to sign confidentiality agreement to protect their patents, formulas, and processes. There are instances where companies dictate a “no compete” clause in their hiring practices, to prevent an employee from working for competitors for typically two years without legal implications. While these examples represent extents, employers go to protect their company’s privacy; companies do not go to that extent to protect the privacy of their employees.
One of the significant issues that frequently evident by the organizations is the privacy policy related to workers. According to Wright (2013), the utilization of workplace drug testing policy by the employers might affect the workers' behavior outside the workplace.
When we view substance use disorders, alcohol is the most widely used drug within the United States and 11 percent of workers have drinking problems (Frone, 2006). Over 20 million people used illegal substances in 2006 and 7 million people abused prescribed medications. Of the 18 million drug abusers, 18 years or older in 2006, 13.4 million (74.9 %) were employed full or part time (SAMHSA, OSA). These addiction problems have an expenditure of $276 billion dollars per year with most of this cost from loss of productivity and health care (H. Harwood, D. Fountain, and G. Livermore, 1992).
Scrolling through my Facebook feed on my iPhone, casually looking at my friend’s pictures statuses and updates, I came across a video with an amusing title. I tapped the play button expecting the video to load. Instead, I was redirected to an app asking permission to access my “public information, pictures and more.” I then realized; what I considered to be “private information” was not private anymore. Privacy is becoming slowly nonexistent, due to the invasion of advertising companies and the information we publicly post in the online world. In the essay “The Piracy of Privacy: Why Marketers Must Bare Our Souls” by Allen D. Kanner remarks, how major companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft get billions of transmissions each year on
Terms and Laws have gradually change overtime dealing with different situations and economic troubles in the world in general. So then dealing with these issues the workplace has become more complex with little or no rights to privacy. Privacy briefly explained is a person’s right to choose whether or not to withhold information they feel is dear to them. If this something will not hurt the business, or its party members then it should be kept private. All employees always should have rights to privacy in the workplace. Five main points dealing with privacy in public/private structured businesses are background checks, respect of off duty activities/leisure, drug testing, workplace search, and monitoring of workplace activity. Coming to a conclusion on privacy, are there any limits to which employers have limitations to intrusion, dominance on the employee’s behavior, and properties.
Do we really have our privacy rights in the workplace? In today’s society we are so caught up with our rights that we often forget about work rules. If someone goes into my office or someone reads my email I feel violated and deprived of my rights. But the real question is, are these things my own to do with? In all reality if it is a private organization the person who owns the business is the owner of all offices and computers, so in that case you’re just using his stuff.
Job skills and training can even be investigated by the employer. The employee is to perform services and these services must be done in a certain manner. Someone who is incoherent because of drug abuse cannot be a pilot for example. This is why employers can test to see if characteristics or tendencies would affect performance. An employee may not want to give a urine or blood sample. The employee may not want to include all of their references but this is besides the fact that an employer is entitled to them. More and more employers are starting to feel this way. "A 1996 survey by the American Management Association found 81 percent of major U.S. companies had drug-testing programs at that time compared with 78 percent in 1995 and just 22 percent in 1987." (May 2) The employer has a right to only certain information and the line must also be drawn in the procedure to obtain the information.
2) It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities-and alarming ones.”
The privacy of the individual is the most important right. Without privacy, the democratic system that we know would not exist. Privacy is one of the fundamental values on which our country was founded. There are exceptions to privacy rights that are created by the need for defense and security.
You get to work, login, check your email, and examine the values of your stocks. Have you done something wrong? Should your manager care about what you do with those couple of minutes? Hypothetically, if you consider 48 working days per year, with 40 hours per weeks (totally 9,600 hours of work a year), then the daily five minutes of personal internet usage mounts to approximately 24 hours (three working days) of wasted company time. In a capitalist economy, such inefficiency impedes the goal to maximize profit; therefore, compelling businesses to turn to rigorous surveillance to discourage inappropriate use of company resources and to promote productivity. As the American legislative and judicial culture has generally upheld companies’ proprietary rights to monitor their employees at the expense of employees’ privacy, civil libertarians have protested to what they claim to be direct violation of the employees’ right to privacy, which the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment implicitly guarantee.