Employee Surveillance In The Workplace

Employers in the workforce have the right to surveil their employees to motivate their workers, to hold their workers accountable, and to help with safety issues. Whether the employee is using a company laptop/phone or not, it is what exactly they are doing on that technology while at work that matters. It is important to have employee surveillance, as workers can use their time in office, to surf the web, do online shopping, check the news headlines, or go on social media all while being paid. Technology has incredible power for organizations, but only if used responsibly and effectively. If the company were to not partake in any sort of employee surveillance, they could face a few different issues. One of them being the fact that if the

While seeing your employee on CNN’s website reading the news, or on Amazon’s website doing online shopping can be frustrating, it is when the employee is using their time toward “not safe for work” (or NSFW) online activities, when surveillance can be quite useful. An example of workplace surveillance from over twenty years ago shows that inappropriate use of the internet while at work has been around for a long time. In this case, computer logs of both the employees of IBM and Apple Inc. showed that they had visited Penthouse Magazine’s website over 13,000 in a single month (Cox and Goette and Young, 2005). Legal action did not occur, but this shows that inappropriate misuse of time in the office has been around since computers have been placed in a work environment over two decades

Companies should be allowed to track how often you are checking these types of websites, as they want to ensure that their employees are getting work done in a timely manner. The company shouldn’t necessarily force their employees to meet with their manager if they clicked on Facebook once, but it is useful to have their browsing information on file in case they have been slacking on their project deadlines. If there is an indication that an employee was misusing their time, they have physical evidence to get the employee to resign or to put them on temporary suspension. A study shows that 28 percent of employers have reported firing people for browsing non work related websites during work (Rapacon, 2016). This can help with litigation issues, which is a huge issue companies are faced with people who sue because of being wrongfully fired. With having physical evidence, the company can defend its decision, saving money and time. Knowing when the employees come and go from work can indicate to the employer who is prompt and who is not, telling them who they need to reach out to to tell them to get to work on time, holding the employees more accountable. As long as these companies are not being overly analytical of their employees’ online activity, such as questioning why the worker was five minutes late or