Employee Monitoring Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Employee Monitoring - Essay Example 1). What U.S. employers can do, and what they should do to maintain a productive workplace, may be two different things. The short-term gains of increased security and perceived productivity can lead to long-term losses in employee morale and greater health care costs from stress and injury -- concerns that also have costs associated with them. This paper will examine the issues of employee monitoring, particularly regarding computer and Internet behaviors, to see whether these policies are good for business. Developments in legal thought and workplace application will be tracked from two early and often-cited cases, Shoars v. Epson No. SWC 112749 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1990) and Smyth v. Pillsbury Co., through a recent case that would seemingly demand an employer's duty to monitor in Doe v. XYC Corp NJ. Super., A-2909-04T2. outside the workplace" (Kizza & Ssanyu, in Weckert, 2). As workplace computer and Internet use increase, so does monitoring of those activities. Correspondingly, more software is now available and affordable for employers to monitor everything from e-mail use to downloading activity to keystrokes per hour, which the authors say has made the monitoring behaviors more evasive and intrusive. Sales of e-mail monitoring software alone have jumped from $139 million in 2001 to an estimated $662 million this year, according to International Data Corp. (Wakefield, para. 1). Historically, emplo Historically, employee monitoring evolved from production line supervisors standing over and watching line workers to ensure they remained on task and tally sheets to record work output. In its early days, Ford Motor Co. would send investigators to inspect employees' homes and finances to determine if they were worthy of the company's profit sharing options (Lewis 21). Employers have long been concerned about employees' non-work-related telephone usage, both in terms of time and long distance costs. Video surveillance in work areas has long been a matter of fact, to protect both employer and employee interests. Drug testing became an issue first for public transportation employees in the 1980s and now many companies require pre-employment screening. Credit, criminal record and other background checks and psychological testing are also common, especially during the interview and hiring stages. Author Frederick S. Lane III, in his book The Naked Employee: How Technology is Compromising Workplace Privacy, explains that businesses are knowingly taking a risk when they implement monitoring policies. They are balancing the cost in time and dollars of surveillance and in lowered morale against the potential returns. "The bet is that the investment in increased surveillance will pay off by reducing employee theft and sabotage, increasing productivity, preventing lawsuits, avoiding violent incidents in the workplace, and preventing terrorist attacks" (11). Early computers were hardly worth worrying about, Lane notes. But the advent of Windows technology and the Internet give plenty of diversions, from solitaire games to shopping. Necessary Evil Employers have legitimate concerns for monitoring employees behavior beyond productivity measures. Security issues range from protecting trade secrets to safeguarding confidential customer data. Excessive use, particularly in downloading