From the web lectures Metaphors and Culture discussing the topic of workplace surveillance: I am a business major and the debate of employee privacy at work comes up in every class. The debating gets heated most of the time with arguments going back and forth on whether a company should or should not be allowed to view what their employees are doing through the computer, telephones, etc. My opinion is that when you are at work you are under the company's time and you should be working - however, this sometimes does not happen. My mom told me a few years ago that her company decided to have a random check at a random time to see what people were doing on their computers....it just so happened that 75% of the people on the computers were looking at porn....to be honest I do not think that is the kind of work the company really wants!
I agree that companies should only have access to the things the employee can access at work, beyond work the time and activities go to the employee. But I am for company surveillance of employees, while they are at work.
Companies pay employees to WORK not to play and complete personal errands, if a company has to implement procedures that may breach employee privacy while at work, so be it. If an employee is doing nothing wrong, the breach of privacy should not be an issue. I feel that many who do have an issue with this topic are those who want to get away with being paid for not really working, and that is what we need to avoid!
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I agree with you, in terms of employees being watched when they're at work. What if they have a lap top they take home to do work there? Should that lap top be watched when they're at home, and suppose to be using it to do work related things? It's a fine line, because technogoly they aren't phyically AT work, but they are using works property. Like I've said before, if the work suspects something is going on, by all means they should do checks whenever. If they're just doing it for the hell of it, and really have no reason to do it (like my boss does sometimes) it's sorta annoying.
ReplyDeleteI agree that companies should have a good degree of survaliance over there company. If I were to be running a top competitive organization, I would expect the most out of my employees. I would not tollerate people who thought work was time to take care of other errands that they decided to save for work time.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I would not want so much survailance that my employees were scared to take a water or bath room break. I believe there is a certain degree of give and take when it comes to survailance. The right combination depends on the company.