Employee Privacy Rights at Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Employee Privacy Rights at Work - Essay Example897). The rights of the company prevail been upheld time and again.However, the real issue the company must address is finding the proper balance amid the two. As Bupp (2001) pointed out, although the company has a wide range of remindering open to it, studies have found that similarly much monitoring can also cause undo stress and be demoralizing for employees. conclusion the balance that protects the companys interests while ensuring employees ar afforded an adequate measure of perceived respect and privacy becomes the aim of innovative business in todays technologically advanced work environment. How that balance may be achieved is the focus of this research.As upheld in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USCA 2510 of 1986 (ECPA), employers, as owners of the premises and communications equipment, have umpteen rights of which employees may be unaware. According to Volkert (2005) employers may search company-owned co mputers, monitor Internet use, use video command and listen to voice mail (p. 1). As early as 2001 Bupp found when reviewing an American Management tie-in survey report that as of 2001 73.5% of all major companies in the U.S. record and review employee communications and activities on the job, including their phone calls, e-mail, Internet connections, and computer files (p. 74). An additional 5% monitor phone logs and/or use video surveillance cameras. In 88% of the cases where the company electronically monitors employees working habits, the employee is informed of the methodology the company uses to monitor their behavior. The need for monitoring of employees has stemmed from documented cases of employee theft of proprietary information from their employer as well as theft of company time by employees who instead of working at the job for which they were hired to be perform, spend an inordinate amount of company time on personal business thereby decrease the productiveness of the company. Lichtash (2004) points out that use or misuse of company time by employees in surf the internet or sending and receiving inappropriate email can lead to serious consequences to the employer including lost productivity and in some instances may lead to a perceived hostile work environment or charges of sexual harassment when email is used to circulate offensive contents. For those reasons alone employers have a ca-ca interest inrestricting the use of their e-mail and Internet systems (p. 27). Lichtash (2004) has also noted that there are varying degrees of use or misuse of company email. Firstly, many employers recognize that time restraints sometimes hold employees to occasionally use company time to conduct some degree of personal business which the company generally allows or overlooks. The second type of misuse is more serious abuse of company systems that would secondment disciplinary action was the company to detect it. The last type of abuse is flagrant misuse resulting in a direct or potential substantial loss to the company which would result in straightaway termination if the company was aware of the