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OPTION 2:
PROCEED WITH MONITORING
Global may decide opening up the discussion is too risky.
They know if they receive negative feedback to monitoring
and still move forward, the outcome could be worse than if
they had never asked for input at all. In this scenario, Global
would make the executive decision that it is in the best interest
of the company to implement surveillance software. Global
hopes that monitoring would prevent employees from sharing
company secrets, harassing other workers, committing fraud,
and wasting time.
If Global's U.S. employees are following suit with the rest
of America, they're spending at least a quarter of their work
day on non-work-related activities such as web surfing, emailing,
blogging, or instant messaging. Even worse, some employees
could be visiting pornographic sites or sending inappropriate
emails—risking sexual harassment lawsuits. It wasn't long
ago that Xerox fired forty employees for visiting pornographic
web sites; The New York Times fired twenty-three employees
for spending most of their work day at gambling and porn sites.7
Although less offensive, e-commerce sites also lure plenty
of nine-to-five traffic their way. With faster connections
at work than at home, employees often end up multitasking,
or "multislacking," at work—planning vacations, ordering clothes
and gifts, playing video games, checking out sports, and day
trading. Charles Schwab & Co. report that as many as 70 percent
of their clientele manage their online trading from their
office desks.8
In addition to increasing productivity, cyberveillance would
also serve as a legal protection for Global. "Cooking the
books" wouldn't be as easy with e-records. With the recent
wave of fraud, government regulation has actually mandated
some companies to e-monitor. The SEC requires more than eight
thousand securities dealers to keep electronic records of
instant messages for at least three years. Hospitals and insurance
companies are also required to preserve all e-communications
related to a patient's health.9
With monitoring measures in place, Global may not only be
able to weed out unethical employees but also prove their
own or an employee's innocence.
Pointing out the benefits of monitoring to Global employees
would increase the odds of getting a positive response. Experts
agree that companies should always disclose their surveillance.
Often employees who are tired of their co-workers slacking
while they work hard are relieved to see such measures put
in place, even if it means giving up some privacy.
OPTION 3:
CHOOSE NOT TO MONITOR
Although there are numerous benefits to installing surveillance
software, Global may decide they don't outweigh the costs.
The cornerstones of their company are loyalty and trust—what
does it say about their level of trust if they monitor their
employees' every move? Global credits their success to hiring
the best people in the world—a message that may lose credibility
if they implement e-monitoring.
Experts say that e-monitoring often dehumanizes the workplace;
reduces employee control and job satisfaction; and increases
stress, fatigue, tension, irritability, and headaches. Some
scholars even doubt that computer monitoring is cost effective.10
Opponents of cyberveillance agree that employees do spend
some work time on personal computer activities, but they also
point out that the lines between home and work are blurred.
Employees are working longer hours and allowing work to come
home with them, so it's only fair that a little bit of personal
life seep into work. And although it seems clear that employees
should not be paid for their non-essential computer activities,
it doesn't necessarily give employers the right to intercept,
collect, and review information from innocent use—especially
if it occurs during non-paid portions of the workday.11
While respecting their employees' rights to privacy in the
workplace, Global may also be protecting them from the abuses
of monitoring. In the wrong manager's hands, cyberveillance
could be dangerous. Employees want to know who is monitoring
the monitor. Spyware is so advanced that not only can every
keystroke be recorded, but with the click of a button a manager
can see any employee's screen in live time. If an employee
makes a quick online purchase, his or her credit card number
just became company information. Those doing the monitoring
could use content to embarrass employees, get even with them,
steal their ideas, or covertly evaluate their performance.12
Some academics say this new technology is the realization
of a prediction by Brandeis and Warren: "Recent inventions
and business methods call attention to the next step which
must be taken for the protection of the person . . . the right
‘to be let alone.' Numerous mechanical devices threaten to
make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet
shall be proclaimed from the housetops.'"13
Employee advocates hope that laws to help protect employees
will eventually catch up to spyware technology. By choosing
this option, Global decides to go against the trend, because
e-monitoring is not a cultural fit. For now, they'll revise
their Internet policies and put off using the software until
they see a serious problem or concern.
EPILOGUE
No matter which option Global chooses, they'll find it's nearly
impossible to strike a perfect balance between legitimate
business interests in workplace efficiency and equally legitimate
interests in workplace privacy. But there are some measures
they can take that will benefit both the bank and its employees.
Regardless of whether they use e-monitoring software, they
can develop and communicate clear guidelines and policies
explaining in detail what is and isn't acceptable. The bank
should be reasonable and respectful of its employees' needs
and time, recognizing that an overworked employee has earned
a few minutes of downtime during work hours.
If employers do feel e-monitoring is necessary, they could
look for software that is less invasive to employee privacy,
such as those that block inappropriate web sites and look
for suspicious keywords only in emails and instant messages.
When implementing new policies or software, the company should
always notify employees in advance.
Finally, although it's easier said than done, the bank should
strive to hire employees they can trust. If Global employees
live up to their reputation of being the best in the business,
cyberveillance won't be a productivity booster or morale buster—it
will simply be unnecessary.
ENDNOTES
1 David Zweig and Jane Webster. "Where Is the Line
Between Benign and Invasive?" Journal of Organizational
Behavior 5 (August 2002): 605.
2 Ibid.
3 Dan Malachowski. "Wasted Time at Work Costing Companies
Billions." Retrieved 15 October 2005 online at www.salary.com.
4 American Management Association and ePolicy Institute
Research. "2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey."
Retrieved 15 October 2005 online at www.amanet.org/press/amanews/ems05.htm.
5 This is a hypothetical case borrowed from research
by John F. Veiga, Jeffery A. Thompson, Richard Dino, Irene
Hau Siu Chow, Eleanor O'Higgins, and Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.
"The Ethics of Cyberveillance in a Global Context." The
Review of Business Information Systems. 3 (2004).
6 Ibid.
7 Michele Masterson. "Cyberveillance at Work." (4 January
2000). Retrieved online 15 October 2005 at money.cnn.com/2000/01/04/technology/webspy/.
8 Michelle Conlin. "Workers, Surf at Your Own Risk."
BusinessWeek Online. (12 June 2000). Retrieved 15 October
2005 online at businessweek.com/2000/00_24/b3685257.htm.
9 Jason McLure. "U R Hereby Fired!" Newsweek.
20 (17 November 2003): e31.
10 Kristen Bell DeTienne. "Big Brother Is Watching:
Computer Monitoring and Communication." IEEE Transactions
on Professional Communication. 1 (March 1004): 5.
11 Charles Frayer. "Employee Privacy and Internet Monitoring."
The Business Lawyer. 2 (February 2002): 857.
12 David Zweig and Jane Webster. "Where Is the Line
Between Benign and Invasive?"
13 Warren and L. D. Brandeis. "The Right to Privacy."
Harvard Law Review 4 (1890): 193-220.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Melody Murdock is former editor of Marriott Alumni
Magazine and is now a freelance writer and editor based
in Salt Lake City. She earned her BA in 2000 and master's
degree in mass communication in 2003 from BYU.
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