The Debate of Workplace Surveillance

One major change in current employment is increased surveillance in the workplace. The American Management Association (AMA) survey exposes a dramatic increase in employee internet connection monitoring from 60 % in 2001 to 66 % in 2007 (Sanders, Ross, and Pattison, 2013, p.2). This has raised more concerns among society, particularly trade unions and human rights activists. Despite the hazardous effects on workers’ right to privacy, surveillance would perform a valuable role in controlling process as a part of management in a business entity provide that it is applied appropriately.

The Drawbacks of Workplace Surveillance

Instead of boosting employees’ productivity as claimed by some employers, the tendency of monitoring demonstrates the contradictory fact. Based on various reports from 1995 to 2008, the difference of monitoring effect on output quantity subjects to work types, which is an increase in highly skilled output and a decline in less skilled output. However, the drop of output quality occurs in both work types either for simple or complicated assignment (Sanders, et.al, 2013, p.22). Furthermore, Friedli in the Guardian (2001) states, “If productivity is related to levels of trust, support and autonomy, a culture of surveillance and punishment is doomed to failure and indicates the absence of proper procedures for performance managing and motivating staff”.

In addition, the operational misconduct of surveillance still occurs in reality, although there is a strict regulation framework. Milne in the Guardian (1999) reported around 30 percents of union representatives in the UK found privacy violations in the workplace, which also comprise union supervision. Another case associated with this abuse is hidden installment of monitoring equipment without the employee’s agreement, sometimes at unpermitted locations like in London Guys hospital where an unknown camera set in the staff locker room to monitor the employee movement around the building for supporting employee’s regular drug screening (Milne, 1999).

Next, the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of privacy violations might become serious concerns, especially from a legal perspective. As Persson and Hansson (2003) claim that the boundary of the privacy derives from social norms and ideals (p.61), Sanders, et.al (2013) illustrate it as an ethically ambiguous object (p.23). Perhaps this factor may contribute to the difference of court decision in similar cases like in the Holmes case and the Stengart versus Loving Care in California. Both cases associate with employee’s email snooping through the company’s computer, but the court decisions contradict each other just because one of company policies did not explicitly refer to personal account. It is believed that lack of pleading became a determination factor (Sanders, et.al, 2013, p.16-17).

The Benefits of Workplace Surveillance

Nevertheless, an ideal working relationship requires a balance between employee’s expectations of privacy, and employer’s expectation of employee performance. In this context, inspection could play a significant role in dismissing employee misbehavior. Recent research at 392 restaurants in 39 states in the USA indicates that specific monitoring software installment can reduce the potential of theft by employee and consequently raised restaurants’ income by US $ 2,982 per week or about 7 percent (Lohr, 2013). Briggs and American Air Filter Co., Inc. case might demonstrate how surveillance protect business interest when a current employee was suspected to former colleagues in other competitors. Based on the court decision, the wiretap action is legally accepted (Sanders, et.al, 2013, p.10-11).

Another aspect of a company’s responsibility includes employee’s life and security protection in the workplace. For this purpose, strict scrutinizing is possibly a reliable practice for enforcing the safety procedure application among the workers for incident prevention (Persson and Hansson, 2003, p.66). As a result, there might be less accidents, just say, in a manufacturing plant, for which a company could face a lawsuit if it did not apply such procedure.

Last, company’s responsibility accommodates third parties’ interest such as other workers and stakeholders so that the workers should balance their interest with others’ interest. From a customer perspective, safety and accident prevention is usually the most typical consideration (Persson and Hansson, 2003, p.67-68). For instance, an airline company might require the recording process of every cockpit conversation. In that circumstance, there may be no longer pilot privacy for passenger protection reason.

The Positioning of Surveillance

It is obvious that surveillance has benefits and drawbacks, but the most challenging part is how to position this issue for generating the ideal working relationship. It seems that surveillance is a necessity in the current working situation. It is true that the right to privacy of every employee should be respected, but an employee’s involvement in an organization such as a company demands consideration of other parties’ interest and at this point, surveillance would benefit for balancing the interests. However, a strong justification is still required as an essential factor for ethic acceptance (Persson and Hansson, 2003, p.62). So, what is the best solution?

Surveillance should be forbidden in the privacy core area. Persson and Hansson (2003) explain that the privacy core refers to the type of access that the most parties desire to have a full control. Less interference and full respect from other parties are some requirements apart from the claim presence issue (p.62–63). For this reason, the establishment of such an independent ethic council is possibly necessary to formulate the agreed core part of privacy. Prohibition of surveillance in restrooms and surrounding areas might be the best example, due to the fact that all people, including employee and employer expect full privacy in that location. This institution’s role might also incorporate the formulation of technical procedure guidance and the ethic rationale examination of specific surveillance. The structure may consist of employer and trade union representatives. It is hoped that there will consequently be less subjectivity in privacy violation cases.

Yet, there should be a strict supervision at implementation level. Previous studies have proposed several principles. First, minimal intrusiveness, that suggests least interference. Based on this principle, employers should reduce the frequency of employee monitoring, perhaps from minute basis to daily (Persson and Hansson, 2003, p.65) Besides, any unrelated-work data should be censored (Sanders, et.al, 2013, p. 7). Second, efficiency and effectiveness requirement, that means the monitoring type should consider the correlation between monitoring indicator with the surveillance goal (Persson and Hansson, 2003, p.66).

Conclusion

Although surveillance appears to generate negative effects in terms of increasing employee productivity, high potential implementation abuse and legal misinterpretation, there are a great number of valuable aspects supported by this activity, covering the balance of each party’s right and obligation or responsibility. However, it demands thorough consideration and regulation both in normative concept and in reality condition to successfully achieve an ideal working situation.