Case Study 17

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Monitoring employees on Networks: Unethical or Good Business?

Q1: Should managers monitor employee e-mail and Internet usage? Why or why not?

Personally, I believe that it is smart for managers to monitor their employee’s activities online or on the internet while they are at work. With no doubt, employees are all paid for their company work and not doing their personal matter. If employees are spending too much time on accessing to unnecessary website and doing their personal matter, it would affect their productivity and work efficiency and it would leads to dropping of company’s revenue as the employees are not putting efforts and bringing value to the company but increase the cost to the company.

Then, if employees are using the company’s internet to access to YouTube or any website that involved streaming of huge amount of data, it would cause the issue of high traffic and it would slow down the company’s network so that legitimate business work cannot be performed.

As well, it could be very serious if an employee is violating the company’s policies, harmful and embarrassing information could be leaked out to outsiders and it would affect the image of the company.

However, the manager or the company should make their policies clear about what website employees are allowed to access and how the company will monitor them. The criteria must be clear. Employees must be informed on the policies to ensure that they are aware in order to avoid argument.  

Q2: Describe an effective e-mail and Web use policy for a company.

An effective e-mail and Web Use Policy for a company should including clear and explicit information in order to avoid argument in the future. For instances, what is permitted and what is not, like what kind of website they are allowed to access and what is not. These may include social networking sites and sites that contain pornographic, violet and threatening content. Everything should be listed clearly in the company’s policy.

The company also could make the policy flexible. They could allow employee doing non work-related legal online surfing and email during break time and lunch time but maybe with only limited speed load. An effective policy should clearly outline the consequences of violating the policy. For example, the employee may receive a verbal warning upon the first violation, a written warning upon the second and an unpaid day off upon the third. 

Q3: Should managers inform employees that their Web behavior is being monitored? Or should managers monitor secretly? Why or why not?

Yes, managers should inform employees that their Web behavior is being monitored. Clear policy and guidelines are important to the employees and ensure they follow it. IBM has “social computing guidelines” that cover employees’ activities on sites. The guidelines urge employees not to conceal their identities, to remember that they are personally responsible for what they publish, and to refrain from discussing controversial topics that are not related to their IBM role.

The purpose of monitoring employee’s internet usage is the same for every company. They just want to ensure that their employees are working full-hearted and putting effort to add value to the company’s growth. Employees are hired to work for the company but not doing personal matter.

Employees have the right to know that to what extend they are being monitored. Otherwise, they will feel stress and might feel that the company is not respecting them. When the employees know that the company is monitoring them, maybe they will try to avoid accessing to unnecessary website and focus more on work as they are afraid of punishment or anything that affecting their personal image and promotion.

In a nutshell, companies can monitor the internet access of employees but first the employees have to be informed and policies have to be listed clearly. It is to show that the company is respecting the employees.

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