The Legal, Ethical, and Managerial Concerns of Employee Monitoring - Assignment Example

Corporate Ethics from a Bottom-up View Point Legal, ethics and managerial concerns of employee monitoring Employee monitoring has developed as a need but then as an extremely disputable issue because of the across the board utilization of innovation. Representative screening is the demonstration of viewing and checking workers activities throughout working hours utilizing boss supplies/property. This expression could be a bit alarming as a representative, where is the line? The restroom is their property; appreciatively there are bosses who know their limits. Lawfully managements are keeping on monitoring their representatives. The main issue that appears to be tended to is what amount they can screen them (Brown, 2005). As a business, you ought to peruse the representative screening law in the event that you need to comprehend the legalities of worker observing. It states that the boss can screen your workers movements on your workstations. Executives ought to have an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) set up that is made known to all their representatives and they ought to be made mindful that their workstations and Internet movement are continuously followed. Fundamentally the law states that you can do whatever you need on the grounds that the workstations and the work done on them is your property. An AUP is a composed assention, marked by workers, plotting the terms and states of Internet utilization. It particularly sets out satisfactory utilization, principles of on-line conduct, and access benefits. They can additionally blanket punishments for violations of the strategy, including security violations and vandalism of the framework. Anybody utilizing the web could be obliged to sign an AUP, and it ought to be continued document as a legitimate, tying record. Adjusting the true blue need of managers to screen the work environment with deference for singular protection is not troublesome (Brown, 2005). Corporate ethics refers to the behavior by which a business conforms to its day-to-day dealings with the world. In other terms, it delineates a set of professional ethics which examine moral and ethical problems prevalent in business environments (Trevino, Weaver & Brown 2007). Corporate ethics is applicable to all the aspects of business conduct. Moreover, it is applicable to the conduct of each and every individual in the organization, as well as the entire organization at large. However, more often than not, research and practice of business ethics has typically taken the view-point of top management. Less emphasis is placed on how Lower level managers and employees define ethical issues, think about ethics and resolve ethical issues. Thus, on this premises, this paper seeks to explain how the lower level managers and employees perceive ethics, in comparison with how the top managers perceive ethics. In establishing an ethics program, a bottom-up approach is recommended (Brown, 2005). This entails engaging all the employees in the discussion and thinking about ethics. This makes it easier to implement as everyone in the company may feel that they had an input in deciding about ethics program. As fact, top-down nostrums are less effective in most organizations. They tend to perpetuate even further, the varied perception toward corporate ethics as perceived by the employees and the top management. Nevertheless, senior managers are known to influence the character and the scope of the organization’s corporate ethics program. They are charged with the responsibility of ensuring the integration of the ethics into the day-to-day routine of the organization. In general, senior managers have much to play in the successful implementation and management of ethics in an organization. Thus, their take and perception on ethics matters a lot. Research has evidenced that senior manager in most companies exhibit a more positive perception towards organizational ethics as compared to the lower level managers and employees. On the other hand, lower level managers and employees tend to be more cynical when it comes to business ethics in organizations. Thus, there is a clear contrast in perception towards organizational ethics between the two groups. Even so, many senior managers have proved to be ignorant of the ethical problems and matters affecting their organization. This plays a pivotal role in discouraging ethics as well as perpetuating the differences in perception towards ethics in most organizations. On the other hand, a substantial number of lower level managers and employees perceive ethics programs, mission statements, codes of conducts among other ethics-related programs to be of little help or of no value to them. The employees also believe that the top managers usually are out-of-touch in matters concerning ethics. They believe that the top managers tend to avoid any discussion about ethics. According to Byron (2006), this is attributed to the fact they are too busy for ethical issues or they are just deliberately avoiding responsibility. There is also escalating tendency of cynicism of the lower level employees and the higher level managers. The lower level employees tend to psychologically distance themselves from the top managers in several instances. The positive perception towards organizational ethics as exhibited by senior management has been attributed to various reasons. Their social interaction and their role expectation is one of the reasons. Another reason is the link between the senior mangers identity and that of the organization. In this regards, senior managers usually play a significant role in the establishment of the organization reputation. According to Trevino, Weaver and Brown (2007), they tend to identify themselves strongly with the organization as well as its image. On the contrary, lower level managers and employees are less likely to identify themselves with the organization. Instead, they are more likely to identify themselves with the department or the work group they belong to (Collins, 2009). This implies that, while the lower level managers and employees identify themselves more to the particular department and work-group and show less regard to identifying themselves with the organization, senior managers identify themselves with the entire organization. All in all, cooperate ethics is not all about ensuring adherences to the set code of ethics. Instead, it involves establishing trust as an intrinsic part of the company’s culture. This can only be achieved through transparency and open bottom-up dialogues. There is need to invert the traditional prism of how corporate ethics are perceived (Collins, 2009). Top management should be accountable to their employees in ethical matters, and not vice versa. Senior manager should take the initiative of seeking the perception of lower level employees with regards to ethics so that they may be able to have a proper understanding on how the lower level employee perceive ethics within the organization. This could be done through conducting employee surveys with a few questions about the incumbent ethics program. They should promote direct and regular interaction between the low level employees and the senior management on matters regarding ethics. This could be done through reviewing of the organizational structures by making them more interactive and less hierarchical. Thus, on the basis of the above discussion, it can be concluded that, there is a varied perception towards ethics between lower level managers and employees, and the top managers. However, this should not be the case. The establishment and implementation of a corporate ethics program within an organization should be a collective responsibility. For effectiveness, the two groups must interact. References Brown, M. (2005). Corporate integrity: Rethinking organizational ethics and leadership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byron, W. J.(2006). The power of principles: Ethics for the new corporate culture. New York: Orbis Books. Collins, D. (2009). Essentials of business ethics: Creating an organization of high integrity and superior performance. (1 ed.). New Jersey: Wiley. Trevino, L. K., Weaver, G. R., & Brown, M. E. (2007). Its lovely at the top:hierarchcal level, identities, and perceptions. Business Ethics Quarterly, 41(2), 48-112. Read More