Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring

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.

Sometimes there is no middle ground. Monitoring of employees at the workplace, either you side with the employees or you believe management owns the network and should call the shots. The purpose of this paper is to tackle whether monitoring an employee is an invasion of privacy. How new technology has made monitoring of employees by employers possible. The unfairness of computerized monitoring software used to watch employees. The employers desire to ensure that the times they are paying for to be spent in their service is indeed being spent that way. Why not to monitor employees, as well as tips on balancing privacy rights of employees at the job.

First ill start off with talking about electronic monotoring. This as well has its pros and cons. On the good side electronic monitoring offers a huge advantage to the employee: it is objective. This benefits the employee because it provides an unbiased method of performance evaluation and prevents the interference of managers' feelings in a review. Electronically generated information offers uniform and accurate feedback on past performance. This means the evaluation will be strictly based on the quantity and quality of work, rather than on managers' opinions.

Another advantage is providing feedback to employees on their work performance. Instead of listening to a manager tell an employee how to do a job, one may review a tape to see exactly what they are doing wrong and judge the employees performance. In this case, monitoring is used as a tool to show employees their work habits and what they need to change to improve their performance. Employees generally like this because they can see for themselves their weak and strong points, and they can use the information to improve their work methods. This knowledge can increase employee performance and efficiency.

On the negative end of this employers cold be basing a persons performance on this.