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Thursday, October 16, 2008
Organizational Control
Electronic monitoring is one of the insidious ways that organizations monitor employees. It used to be that checking the phone bill was one of the few ways that management could monitor employees - today however the options have increased significantly, with no end in sight. The short list at our facility is: phone bill, e-mail, closed cicuit camera, and key strokes. The other day I went to luch with a coworker, in a seldom used area of the building. On our way back, my coworker noticed a sign that said: "This entrance is monitored by closed circuit camera and voice recorder." I was suprised about the voice recording because I had thought we were in an area where we could have a confidential conversation.
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That's really bad! I understand that organizations need to have some control over their employees, but all this electronic monitoring is ridiculous. Organiations should understand that people will make personal calls, surf the net, chat with friends, etc. Voice recording is going way too far though and it's horrible to think that they are actually recording your conversations. I think organizations need to trust their employees and monitor employees through their quality of work and ability to accomplish tasks. As long as the employee is doing a great job, why should it matter if the employee does personal things once in a while...
I understand that the management of the company needs to have some ways to monitor what employees are doing while they are at work and make sure that employees are actually working. Some employees have looked at unappropriated material online and their coworkers should be protected from that. But when does monitoring becomes too intrusive? Monitoring conversations definitely sounds very intrusive to me. I often wondered if my manager had a way of listening to my private conversations. Many times she knew exactly what I was thinking even though I never shared my thoughts with her. Maybe I was more "watched" and "listened to" than I thought. Therefore I think that it would be better to always assume that we are watched make sure our behavior is perfect. At least that's what I do and if I want to have a private conversation with someone then I would leave the work premises.
I totally understand where you are coming from. Nowadays companies have been monitoring employees. Using electronic monitoring systems, managers and team leads capture everything employees do during business hours within the company. Last Wednesday, for instance, my group had one more ordinary weekly meeting. One of the topics for the meeting agenda was related to our phone coverage.
I had no idea that it worked this way. But apparently every member of the group is supposed to log off the phone whenever he or she is not at the desk. So let’s say, every time one needs to go to the restroom, the phone needs to be logged off. During this last meeting the team lead was not happy. She realized that many people were spending a long time away from their desks, and the phone coverage was insufficient. So from now on, we will need to rotate even to go to the bathroom, so that there is always coverage for the phone lines. This is another perfect example on how companies monitor their employees on a minute-base.
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Privacy is such a hot topic among organizations. My most recent job dealt a lot with the implementation of electronic monitoring, but from a web security standpoint. We would set up crawling networks to check for any red-flagged web content.
While we did nothing with email monitoring, one of my friends from another department was convinced that we did. Since he always asked questions about it, I figured he had something to hide and decided to play a joke on him. I called him one day panicked, saying that his name came up for questionable content. He absolutely freaked out, asking whether he should tell his manager right away or see what happens... When I told him it was a joke, he didn't seem to find it as funny. :(
At one of my jobs, I found myself with unoccupied time partly due to a slowdown in business for the brokers I worked for, and partly due to the fact that I happened to be very quick at the tasks given to me. I started asking if other people needed assistance, but most of the time, people had their routines and their quirks and didn't want to hand over their projects to another admin. And, so, rather than making personal phone calls or staring into space or shuffling papers around, I would get on the internet and try to at least keep my brain somewhat engaged, even if it was with non-work related matters.
I never received a complaint from my brokers about my work, nor did I sit on projects - when I had an assignment, I did it, and I would be sure to ask if there was anything else they needed when it was completed. My manager never said anything about my workload or my working habits... well, she never said much of anything to me.
One day, I discovered that my personal website was not accessible from my computer. I tried other websites - most of them were accessible, but a few of the ones I most frequently visited weren't loading. I called over to my coworker, "Hey, Ames, got a minute? Can you see if my website's down?" She brought it up on her browser immediately.
I called the IT guy, who saw my extension on his Caller ID and answered immediately with a mumbled "Don't talk to me. Talk to [ManagerName]. I didn't have anything to do with it."
From what I was able to piece together, our internet usage had been monitored the entire time. I already kind of knew that, seeing as we'd had great times laughing at stories of our brokers surfing hardcore pornography sites on company time, but the implication was always that the monitoring didn't go past the amused IT guy. Furthermore, I was careful about the sites I visited, never visiting anything inappropriate, and nobody ever seemed to have an issue with people using the internet on their downtime.
Nevertheless, my boss had gone through the monitoring logs, decided she didn't like what she saw, and told the IT guy to set up a net nanny on my computer to block specific websites - without saying a word to me about it.
When I realized all this, I was annoyed, then furious, then contemplative about my level of commitment to my job. Perhaps the logs were telling my manager a story, even if she didn't feel like sharing it. I was already one foot out the door at that point, and it wasn't too long after that incident that I found a job that I was far more engaged in... for a time.
I think this can be a very touchy subject because of employee’s privacy. How far should management go? I think that management certainly has a right to monitor behavior, but should there be a limit to their surveillance?
I would say that your example of the video camera and voice recorder is an extreme example, but at least management was kind enough to put up the sign to inform you of your lack of privacy. I think it is sad that organization must go this far to monitor employee’s behavior. There should be a certain amount of trust that exists between management and other employees.
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