Employee Personal Privacy - Literature review Example

Employee Personal Privacy number Introduction In the current era, the business houses are hugely depended on technology. Technology advancement in workplaces helps information to flow quickly and abundantly. Rapid availability of information has occurred due to advancement of computer technology and growth in internet facilities. This advancement also has a dark side to deal with which is invasion of privacy. Privacy issue in the workplaces is one of the major areas of concern. The boundary between professional and personal information of employees become very thin and porous due to the technological advancement in the workplace (Stanton & Stam, 2006). Employer and employees in a workplace have different interests regarding the usage of information technology. Employers dislikethe potential loss of productivity and distraction of employees due to usage of workplace technology (Kleiner, 2003). This thesis evaluates the point of view of various scholars regarding the usage of the workplace information and their effect on the employee and employer relation. Literature review Technological development in the workplace has improved the communication pattern of employees in any organization. This development is also creating conflict between employees and employers as privacy of employees is getting hampered due to electronic surveillance. Previous researches have shown the rising level of concern in terms of the various levels of privacy protection and exploitation in the workplace (Bélanger & Crossler, 2011). Most companies have the facility to capture, store and process private information of the employees through the widespread information system and they are entitled to the easy transmission of these data between organizations (Bélanger & Crossler, 2011). Researchers described a range of surveillance techniques that are being used by various organizations such as CCTV cameras in the workplaces and electronic communication monitoring facility (Bélanger & Crossler, 2011). The main reason of installing video surveillance is to increase the safety measurement of employees, discouraging drugs and alcohol usage, protecting employer’s property and monitoring the productivity of workforce (Ciocchetti, 2011). According to The Worklife Report in 1999, a survey of American Management Association (A.M.A) has shown that 67% of large and medium sized companies are using various forms of electronic monitoring (Lasprogata, King & Pillay, 2004). A.M.A surveys also conveyed that near about 28% of those companies have fired their employees for unauthorized usage of telecommunication facilities of workplaces (Lasprogata, King & Pillay, 2004). European Corp. Protection Association (ECPA) has allowed video surveillance in work places but they have not allowed adding audio to them to protect the privacy of employees (Ciocchetti, 2011). Various major surveys in the USA, UK and Australia have been conducted to understand the positive and negative side of monitoring business email usage. These surveys have provided a great help to generate some effective policies which ensures disciplinary use of email systems in offices (Arnesen & Weis, 2007). Few vault.com polls have discovered that almost half of their respondents in the USA and UK are very concerned about the email monitoring policy of their organization. On the other hand almost 58% of the respondents are not very worried about this possibility (Ball, Daniel & Stride, 2012). Employee related searches are one of the most practiced and oldest processes of employee monitoring. These searches generally allow employers to find out the illegal drug usage and alcohol consumption habits of the employee (Workplace Fairness, 2014). Apart from few safety critical jobs, drug and alcohol testing of employee is not very popular in various parts of Europe (Workplace Fairness, 2014).The law allows employers the access to every location of their workplaces even if it has been entitled to any individual employee as their personal office. Employers can enter these offices and they can also conduct searches in those areas (Ciocchetti, 2011). It has been mentioned in the employee privacy law that if employees bring drugs to the workplace, employer can take disciplinary action against them that also includes employee termination (Ciocchetti, 2011). Another concern of employee privacy is the internet and website visit monitoring by the employers. Employees have often been found to be using internet and computers provided by employers for work purposes to check their personal emails and social media profiles. Employers are concerned about the effect of these personal internet usages on the productivity of the employees. A number of cases of employee resignations have been noticed due to the enforcement of internet monitoring policies (Ciocchetti, 2011). Court generally supports employer’s right to monitor the internet access of employees in the workplace because employees cannot use the services provided by employers for personal usage (Ciocchetti, 2011). Policy allows a private company to access the personal information of any employee such as their last employment, salary structure, family background and any drug usage history. Consumer researches have shown that female employees are very much concerned about the privacy protection issues rather than male employees (Ciocchetti, 2011). Researchers have shown that the privacy law of various countries has allowed the employer to disclose the personal information of any employee if any proper written request has been made. Those organization need to appoint a human resource personnel who will handle all the information dealings with the authorization from those employees (Dammeier, 2012). Over the past few years various cases have been observed where the privacy and free speech related to social media posting by employees was questioned by the employers. Posting unauthorized details and comments about employers or other employees have caused termination for many individuals (Abril, Levin & Riego, 2012). According to the employers, the open comment about organization, employers or other employees in the social media can harm the image of the organization and cause personal or racial conflict between employees (Abril, Levin & Riego, 2012). It has been seen in various interview processes that the recruiters are asking for the Facebook password for proper background check of the potential candidate. It helps employer to understand their personality and to check whether they have any criminal background or not (Small Business HR, 2013). The government of various locations such as California, Illinois and Maryland already declared this practice as illegal and any employer can face the consequences if they illegally enter to any candidate’s personal site (Small Business HR, 2013). Access panel monitoring helps the employer to monitor the access of an employee to various location of workplace including restroom and elevators. The main motive of using this kind of monitoring device is to increase and stabilize the workplace security (Ciocchetti, 2011). All these studies and researches have shown that implementing privacy law in workplaces is necessary for the benefit of both the employees and the employers. Therefore it can be inferred that employer intrusion in employee’s privacy causes higher level of stress and lower level of productivity. Impact of academic knowledge on social elements Rules and regulations on employee privacy have both positive and negative effect on the ethical approach of the organizations. Law generally stabilize the social institutions and penalize individuals for specific acts. In contrary to this, ethics provide guidelines about how an individual should behave. Though law has provided the freedom to employers to search for personal belongings of an employee in the workplace, employers sometimes cross the ethical line of an employee’s privacy. The case of Delia vs. City of Rialto is a clear example for ethical misconduct by the employer (FindLaw, 2014). In the year 2006, Nicholas Delia, a firefighter of City’s fire department was on off-duty for a long time as per the direction of the doctor. In his earlier days of his workplace he has faced some disciplinary action from the organization which caused his demotion. The employers were suspicious about his prolonged off-duty situation because of his disciplinary history. An investigator was hired to conduct surveillance on Delia. This surveillance got very personal and they started monitoring each and every step of Delia’s personal life when he was off-duty. The city started the investigation with no warrant and it was unethical as Delia had no restriction on his daily activity by his physician (FindLaw, 2014). This case has given a clear picture of employer’s unethical involvement in employee’s personal life. One company in Pennsylvania forcefully limited the bathroom breaks of their employees. Employees of that company required managerial permission for their each and every movement. These kinds of restrictions are unethical and termed as “unreasonable restriction” (Congress of the United States, 1985). Employees can file a case against these restrictions under Occupational safety and Health Administration regulation. Email monitoring is important to understand the behavior of the employees but it is unethical to monitor their behavior without their knowledge. Dow Chemical, a well-known chemical producer, has demonstrated the unethical practice of email monitoring. This company took a snap shot of internet activity of their employee without any prior notice to them. Therefore, they found a number of unauthorized behaviors in the email conversation of various employees (Bassick, McNamara & Sullivan, 2010). This action termed as unethical as the employees were unaware that they were being monitored. The case of Pietrylo vs. Hillstone Restaurant Group has demonstrated the unethical approach of the employer to access the social site of an employee. Employer of Brian Pietrylo accessed his personal MySpace site to gather the details of his communication with other employees and to read his and others comment about the organization and its management. Therefore, they have terminated him for negative remarks about the restaurant management (Abril, Levin & Riego, 2012). In response to the law suit filed by the employee, court found that the employer has retrieved the password unethically and therefore the court awarded the employee with compensation (Abril, Levin & Riego, 2012). The privacy policies in workplaces are designed in such a way so that it can help the employers to get maximum profit from their human resources by ensuring proper safety and protection of the employee and the workplace. In contrary to this, various unethical movement of employer has been witnessed in the name of these privacy policies (Abril, Levin & Riego, 2012). Impact of active citizenship in the contemporary issue during the next five to ten years There is no singular definition of the concept of active citizenship. In a general view, active citizens are those who have the knowledge and understanding to make valuable decisions about the communities and workplace to improve the quality of work culture and employee life (Crick & Lockyer, 2010). Active citizenship in a workplace is important to motivate all employees to come together for their own purposes. It also helps in promoting the work ethics by helping each other in a community or workplace. Active citizenship in an organization is important to ensure the proper usage of legislature and technological development for employee personal privacy. The thesis has shown that today’s employee monitoring technology is getting very powerful day by day (Crick & Lockyer, 2010). This employee monitoring is becoming unwanted in some cases and causing legal issues. Active citizenship in workplace will help in balancing the employee monitoring framework. One of the key characteristic of active citizenship is employee empowerment enabling employees to take active part in the decision process of public policy and services (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin & Del Riego, 2012). Influencing active participation on the part of the employees will ensure the proper implementation of employee privacy policy in the next five to ten years. The involvement of employees in the decision of privacy policy will make them aware about the rules and regulation. In the next five to ten years it will reduce the rate of employee termination and resignation due the digital monitoring of employees (Ciocchetti, 2011). Active citizenship will improve the response of the legal system towards the issues of contemporary employee monitoring. In the next five to ten years, increase in active citizenship in an organization will empower all the employees to create a line between the technological help in work efficiency and excessive invasions on their privacy. Their involvement in structuring the legal system of employee privacy right will help in minimizing the technology intrusion in employee’s personal life, freedom and dignity. Therefore, it can result in healthy employer-employee relationship and it will provide less scope of conflict in workplaces. On the other hand, this active involvement of employees can be a reason of concern for the employers to protect the confidential data of the business. Improper use of these data could be a threat to the employer in the long run. Conclusion Protecting employee privacy is crucial in the contemporary era as the proliferation of technology have made it easier for employers to conduct unethical investigation in the life of the employees. This research has shown that in most of the cases, technology plays a vital role to protect the privacy of employee and to monitor their performances. Sophisticated software helps the organization to increase the productivity of employees and maintain the safety and security of the workplace. Employers are constantly monitoring employees both inside the workplace and outside of it. This trend is causing problem in workplaces by creating conflict between employee and employer. It is also hampering the freedom and dignity of employees which results in stress and lower productivity. Therefore, active citizenship will help any organization to motivate the employees by minimizing the employer monitoring in their day to day activity and their personal life. Though active citizenship can cause few conflict between employer and employee, it will also help the organization to improve the productivity of employees by their active participation in the decision making process. 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