Electronic Monitoring and Employee Productivity - Assignment Example

?Electronic Monitoring and Employee Productivity Recent technological advancements have played a great role in the work place because they have enhanced the employers’ ability to monitor virtually every aspect of an employee’s activities. Approximately two thirds of managers in America are reported to be engaged some form electronic monitoring or surveillance of their employees. Most employees are subjected to monitoring that includes office and cubicle searches, video surveillance, electronic mail monitoring and health and psychological screening (Schumacher, 2011, pp 138-144). The current trends in electronic monitoring especially in the 21st century have increased at an alarming rate. The latest monitoring trends include the use of video cameras, email monitoring and telephone recordings among others. The monitoring has moved to network forensic monitoring software that is currently in use to mine emails for keywords and security breaches (Schumacher, 2011, pp 138-144). Most managers say that without monitoring employee activities it is difficult to achieve productivity especially in this era of social networking. The rise of the internet compounded by the development of the smart phones have made it difficult for employees to stick to work and therefore contributing to decreased productivity. This may not be true considering some of the theories that have been propagated about employees and productivity (Schumacher, 2011, pp 138-144). McGregor’s theory X and Y help us understand the positive and the negative aspects of employing electronic monitoring at the workplace. Theory X assumes that people work only for money and security and therefore its approach is based on coercion, use of threats, close supervision and tight controls to manage employees. This in turn makes employee less productive on purpose and increases hostility. This theory has been used negatively when managers use electronic monitoring to micro-manage rather than to benefit the company (Bolden, Gosling, A, & Dennison, 2003, pp 6-50). Tailor in his theory of scientific management asserts that people are motivated to work as a result of the pay they receive. They receive what is equivalent to what they have worked for and therefore he equates output to wages. Tailor says that employees should do what managers tell them to do and the managers tell the employees what to do in order to be paid accordingly. This theory has been used to support electronic monitoring so as to achieve productivity and pay employees what they are entitled to depending on what they have done (Bolden, Gosling, A, & Dennison, 2003, pp 6-50). Therefore employee monitoring can be seen as both positive and negative in many aspects. Implementing the electronic surveillance will mean that employees are under tight control from the management and therefore they may end up being less productivity as McGregor puts it. On the other hand the productivity might increase because when they are monitored, the time they are not productive is subtracted from the total time. This means that by the end of the day their wages will be reduced. The reduction will make them leave the activities that make them less productive so as to increase their wages (Schumacher, 2011, pp 138-144). Employee monitoring has been criticized by a number of people because it infringes on the rights of both the customer and the employee. It is not the best form of management as it increases stress, decreases job satisfaction, cultivates a culture of mistrust and negative work relationships and therefore it is not. To some level there are key ethical considerations that encourage employee electronic monitoring and these include security as concerns a company’s information such as trade secrets or restricted places, productivity as in employees have to be at the right place at the right time and doing the right things at the right time, reputation as employers do not want company information such as logos to be found at the wrong place that may cause them embarrassment and lastly impact on third parties such that the employer is mandated to do monitor them so as to protect the safety and health of their clients (Kaupins & Minch, 2005, pp1-10). On the other hand there are key ethical considerations that limit employee electronic monitoring. The first one is privacy such that employers need to balance between employee privacy rights and reasonable employer rights. There are some activities that employees should be allowed to do in private (Kovatch, 2001, pp3-12). The second key ethical consideration is informed consent such that before any employee is monitored at the work place they need to be informed of what is going on so that they understand perfectly what they are expected to do (Kaupins & Minch, 2005, pp1-10). Without informed consent the company will be going against the rights of individuals and this may result in court cases between the company and the employee or the company and the clients. The third ethical consideration is that the employees need to understand the policies in place that support monitoring and why they have been established. All employees should know and have access to these policies which must be consistent in all the departments in the organization (Kaupins & Minch, 2005, pp1-10). A company such as this one has so many stakeholders that will be affected by this monitoring system and all of them should get to understand what is happening at the organization. The most important stakeholders in any company are the employees in the company; the second group is the management, the third are the customers and lastly the suppliers. All these people need to be aware of all the expected monitoring processes and procedures and what it is aimed at. Implementing electronic monitoring in an organization is a delicate matter. Research studies and theoretical models have proved that there are short term benefits that come with employee monitoring such as improved on purpose productivity but the negative impacts are many such as diminished relationships between the management and the employees, increased stress, emotional and physical health problems. The major argument of organizations using electronic monitoring has been to protect information leaks, reduce non-company related internet use resulting in reduced productivity and breaches in confidential information (Schumacher, 2011, pp138-144). The effect of this on employees has not been looked into extensively. A good manager should not rely on electronic monitoring software but use his or her leadership skills to build relations with employees and acknowledge their contributions. This in the long run cultivates a positive working relationship resulting in improved productivity (Schumacher, 2011, pp138-144). List of References Bolden, R., Gosling, J., A, M., & Dennison, P. (2003, June). A review of leadership Theory and Competency Frameworks. Retrieved October 13, 2011, from Centre for Leadership Studies: http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/cls/documents/mgmt_standards.pdf Kaupins, G., & Minch, R. (2005, August). Legal and Ethical Implications of Employee Location Monitoring. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 1-10). Hawaii: IEEE. Kovatch, P. (2001). Privacy Rights in the work place:Constitutional and statutory considerations. Journal of Individual Employment Rights, 9(1):3-12. Schumacher, S. (2011). What Employees Should Know About Electronic Performance Monitoring. ESSAI Journal, 8(38):138-144. Read More