Workplace Monitoring - How Much Is Too Much Essay

Workplace Monitoring - How Much Is Too Much - Essay Example Despite the battle over privacy issues, employers remain firm in enforcing workplace monitoring for a number of reasons. A survey by the American Management Association in 2001 revealed the following as the top reasons: (1) Legal compliance – to provide some degree of legal protection for both company and consumer and falls under â€Å"due diligence† of a company to keep adequate records; (2) Legal liability – to prevent employees from accessing offensive graphic material on computer screens that could escalate hostility in the workplace environment; (3) Performance review – to allow supervisors to review, evaluate and improve job performance of customer service and consumer relations personnel based on taped field calls and other sources procured through monitoring; (4) Productivity measures – to ensure all activities and communications in the workplace are business related; (5) Security concerns – to protect the value of proprietary corpora te information.3 2. Duke L. & Tech. Rev., â€Å"Monitoring employee e-mail: Efficient workplaces vs. employee privacy†, iBRIEF/ eCommerce, Issue No. 0026, 25 July 2001, 2 May 2007 . 3. American Management Association, â€Å"2001 AMA survey workplace monitoring and surveillance summary of key findings†, AMA Research, 2001, 2 May 2007 . There are many ways by which workplace monitoring is performed. But the main idea is that employers have the right to monitor every business activity performed during office hours. In telephone monitoring, an employer may choose to listen to employees’ phone calls at work for reasons of quality control. Some protection may be accorded to the employee if he is calling from a phone designated for personal calls but if he tries to use a business phone for