Employee Monitoring
At my Father’s workplace, an employee was visiting questionable websites during work hours. This man got a virus on his computer, and valuable information about the company was stored on this computer. All of this information was lost. After this incident, the company introduced a new policy where all online activity would be monitored. Management would be able to check all the websites an employee visited in a day. Is this invasion of privacy or a necessary step to protect the company? I worked at this company this summer as an intern. I felt like my privacy was a little bit invaded, what if I needed to visit WebMD or another website of the source? I would not want management knowing any personal medical problems. Additionally, I felt like I could not even check my non-company email account for fear I would get in trouble. Base says that “workers complain that such constant, detailed surveillance diminishes their sense of dignity independence and destroys confidence”. I would have to agree. I know that the work place is meant for work, but sometimes you have downtime, or simply need a ten minute break to do your own break. I do not think that workers should feel guilty or fearful for doing these things. That said, some monitoring is necessary. I think that as long as the workers are getting everything they need to do done they should not be monitored. Workers should have to earn the trust of the company, and if they are proved competent then they should not be monitored.