Is Employer Monitoring of Employee Social Media Justified - Essay Example

One shares the same contention as that which was promoted by Eric Krell, from “Privacy Matters: Safeguarding Employees’ Privacy Requires an Effective Policy, Sound Practices, and Ongoing Communication” that employer monitoring of employee social media is not justified. As disclosed, human resources practitioners believe that “creating privacy policies represents only one of several components necessary for effective privacy management. They say managing the policies requires board-level action, an ongoing collaborative management effort, employee education and, just as important, making the policies meaningful to all employees” (Krell, 2010, par. 2). Likewise, according to Beesely (2010), “currently, no specific laws govern the monitoring of an employee’s social media activity on a company’s computer (employers are on the lookout for unauthorized posting of company content – videos, documents, photos, etc.). However, the U.S. National Labor Relations Act does address employee rights in regard to the use of social media and acceptable social media policy” (par. 7). Inasmuch as employees regard their personal correspondences and information on social media as private and confidential, they, too, have to adhere to company policies and procedures that respect the use of company sites for purely work-related endeavors.

The employer is not justified to monitor employees’ social media access and use when done during private times and outside the scope of the employees’ work.