...Employee Privacy Report The need for businesses and organizations to access the internet has brought about several concerns regarding employee privacy while emailing and surfing the internet at the workplace. Each employee is given access to company issued computers and equipment, and consider his individual email messages and internet browsing to be private. In most organizations, security controls, such as passwords, are used to ensure privacy; however, the internet systems managers still have access to employees’ activities. Employees usually do not realize that these security measures are intended to prevent unauthorized access to his computer and files, not to invoke control over the employees. POLICY IMPLIMENTATION Organizations can review the following guidelines when developing or improving the company’s existing policies: • Policies should be properly discussed and reviewed with management and employees. • Policies should specify what activities will not be tolerated within the workplace. • Policies should specify what accessed information is kept in a log and who in the chain of command will have access to this log. • Proper computer and internet security policies should be set in place and reviewed with all employees and management. • Policies should address how the organization will be monitoring employee compliance with these policies. • Regular review of stated policies will allow the organization to make the necessary changes to keep pace with...
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...defines an employment relationship in which either party can immediately terminate the relationship at any time with or without any advance warning and with no subsequent liability, provided there was no express contract for a definite term governing the employment relationship and that the employer does not belong to a collective bargaining group. In USA, any hiring is presumed to be “At-Will” that is the employer is free to discharge individuals for good cause or bad cause or no cause at all and the employee too is equally fit to quit, strike or otherwise cease work. In this assignment in capacity of the Chief operating Officer of the company, I would like to address some of the personnel problems that require immediate attention before the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the company. Scenario 1.In this scenario John’s action of posting a negative statement on Facebook is truly unprofessional and unethical. According to the National Labour Relations Board, criticism by the employee over social networking sites is a protected activity that employers should not violate by punishing workers for such statements. Hence it prohibits employers to retaliate against employees for communicating with each other online or in person. John cannot be legally fired. This action will surely impact the operations of the company, and hence to limit the liability and impact on the company as a COO of the company I would simply organise a training to revive the code of ethics and conduct for the...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper The journal article that I chose is about a case of privacy and confidentiality of health care employees in New Zealand and not the United States. Its relevancy though is just as important here as it was in New Zealand. New Zealand has a Privacy Act similar to the United States’ HIPAA. The article “Privacy, employees and human resources: a case report” (Mair, 2011) documents the release of an employee’s medical records to his employer, a New Zealand hospital and the resulting issues. Although administrators are highly cognizant of patient privacy and confidentiality, it can be easily overlooked when employees are involved. The article concerns an employee at a particular hospital who presented himself to that hospital’s Emergency Department for stress and anxiety connected to his employment there and his bullying and harassment by a particular nurse. He had made several complaints to the administration about this treatment by the nurse and nothing had been done. The nurse, Nurse X, who interviewed him, noted that he was at a low risk of harming himself or others. He also told Nurse X that he had submitted his resignation that day to the hospital. A doctor at the hospital assessed him and determined that he was of moderate risk to himself because the internalizing his anger could lead to suicide. He was transferred to another hospital where he was again evaluated and discharged the next day after as it determined that he was no longer experiencing...
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...organization. It is management's job to maintain an effective control system that provides reasonable, but not absolute assurance for effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. According to the EPPA act employers are required by law to post notices summarizing the protections of the act in workplace areas. If certain laws and regulations such as the EPPA Act are required to be posted in workplaces areas then management’s internal control process need to comply with applicable laws and regulations. In order to stay compliant with relevant laws and regulations management can consult an advisor. 2. Below are policies and procedures used by stores to maintain control over checkout stand operations and the control object: a) Provide a receipt for every transaction. Encourage customers to expect a receipt by posting signs at each register. i) This ensures that the cashier is not over charging the customers. ii) The cashier is handing them back the exact change due. A cashier might hand the customer less change back and at the end of the day pocket the money that his/her draw is over by. b) Put one employee in charge of setting up cash drawers. Have another double- check the cash count. i) This control is to make sure the cashier is responsible for his/her draw at the end of the shift. If you give a cashier a draw with $100 and they agree it has the same amount then at the end of their...
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...procedure was designed to be used solely for business purposes. In many instances employees have been made to feel as if their privacy has been invaded. Upon implementing such practices employers and employees both have a need to be knowledgable of any policies permitting the use of monitoring devices and to know their rights. Research The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) is the only federal statute that offers workers protections in communications privacy. ECPA prohibits the intentional interception of electronic communications. However, the ECPA contains loopholes that facilitate employee monitoring. First, employers are permitted to monitor networks for business purposes. This enables employers to listen in on employee phone calls or to view employees' e-mail. Employers may not monitor purely personal calls, however, in order to determine that a call is personal, employers usually have to listen to portions of the employee's conversation. Second, an employer may intercept communications where there is actual or implied employee consent. Consent has been found where the employer merely gives notice of the monitoring. An example of a case in which the courts ruled in favor of the employee: Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc. New Jersey Supreme Court Upholds Privacy Claims. The New Jersey Supreme Court considered whether the former employee – Ms. Stengart – had...
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...The Legal Environment of Business Research Paper February 9, 2011 The legality of employers monitoring the actions of employees outside the workplace and reprimanding or firing individuals based on any findings. Introduction What an employee does outside of the workplace and working hours should not put him at risk for termination, right? Not necessarily. Today, employees are meeting up in bars to have bash sessions about their terrible boss or awful working conditions, they are updating their Facebook status to reflect their aggravation towards their boss who never listens and they are creating online forums for other employees to join, as a place to express their issues as well. Not only do employees engage in work related discussions outside of the office but also many engage in what they see as private activity. Private activities may include, cohabitating with a co-worker, having a few drinks with their spouse on their vacation in the Bahamas or campaigning for Rudy Giuliani. In today’s ever changing working world privacy and the actions of individuals are becoming a more popular topic as people try and protect themselves, whether it be from wrongful termination or the right to terminate an employee. Company’s, rightfully so, want to monitor their employees actions both inside and outside the workplace to prevent potential problems from arising. They don’t want potential customers overhearing the distaste about the company from employees in a bar nor have those...
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...Employee Privacy Report University of Phoenix COMM285/ Business Communication September, 10th 2011 Date: September 10th, 2011. To: H. Dixton Re: Monitoring practices for Computers use, Internet, e-mail, and company Privacy Policies at O & R Fashion Inc. O& R Fashion Incorporated implemented new regulations to its current company privacy policy to regulate and monitor its employees’ e-mail and internet practices. The Internet use, electronic mail, and employee privacy policies needed to be reevaluated so employees can comply with company formal policies, regulations, procedures and because in the past our company’s managerial staff experienced many unresolved issues with employees due to their uncertainty to how to implement our policies. As a result O & R Fashion Incorporated with the association of its HR services developed an updated policy manual to monitor emails, and Internet access, however; providing the appropriate balance between company’s rights and employee’s privacy rights. The new changes and implementations to our existing privacy policies will reduce or even avoid misunderstandings or any similar situations in the future. This report was completed to explain the new implementations regarding emails usage, and Internet practices within our company and the reasons why O & R Fashion Incorporated decided to implement them. This report will also address some of the employees’ assumptions regarding such policies, how employees are affected by...
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...can an employee reasonably expect to have privacy? Employee’s expect to have a reasonable amount privacy in the work place at least in their own work space but today that may not be all possible due to electronic Surveillance . Employees are becoming increasingly concerned about their privacy as their employers are monitoring them electronically more closely than ever before. Still employees expect to have privacy at the lunch area, bathrooms and lockers. Besides those places the employee has little or almost no privacy within the company. Electronic monitoring allows an employer to observe what employees do on the job and review employee communications, including e-mail and Internet activity, often capturing and reviewing communications that employees consider private. Video monitoring is common in many work environments to maintains security, by monitoring employees and to deter theft. There are laws set in place to also protect the privacy tof employee’s personnel records, including personal data, medical information and health status, social security numbers, background screenings information, financial and everything else that could invade a persons privacy. Is Herman's need to know whether his salespersons are honest a sufficient ground for utilizing electronic surveillance? The answer probably depends on whether there are alternative methods of ascertaining the honesty of salespersons that are less invasive of the employees' privacy. For example...
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...Electronic surveillance in the workplace Electronic Surveillance in the Workplace: Concerns for Employees and Challenges for Privacy Advocates Anna Johnston and Myra Cheng Paper delivered 28 November 2002 International Conference on Personal Data Protection Hosted by Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee, Korea Information Security Agency Seoul, Korea Ms Anna Johnston is the NSW Deputy Privacy Commissioner. Ms Myra Cheng is a Research & Policy Officer with Privacy NSW, the Office of the NSW Privacy Commissioner. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dr Ben Searle, Macquarie University, in providing an overview of the relevant literature from the field of organisational psychology. Introduction This paper takes up the challenge of talking about privacy in the workplace - a site of potential conflict in which there may be co-existing radically different views on whether workers can or should have any expectations of privacy. As long as there has been employment, employees have been monitored. Nebeker D M & B C Tatum, "The effects of computer monitoring, standards and rewards on work performance, job satisfaction and stress" (1993) 23(7) Journal of Applied Social Psychology 508 at 508. However, in recent years, with an environment of affordable technology, the availability of less easily observable or detectable monitoring devices, and a lack of adequate regulation, there has been an explosion in the use of electronic monitoring...
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...Corporate Governance 17 July 2011 1. Explain where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace. Reasonable expectation of privacy for an employee could require a balancing test as what the US District Court judge used in the 1996 case of Michael A. Smith v. The Pillsbury Company. The judge ruled in the defendants favor saying that Pillsbury’s “interest in preventing inappropriate and unprofessional comments or even illegal activity over the email system outweighed any privacy interest the employee may have in those (email) comments”,( Halbert 2011, p.72). In this case, it was more important for Pillsbury to know what communication was going out through its email system than it was to protect Mr. Smith’s privacy. Consequently, where an employee expects to have reasonable privacy depends on the employers’ own policy within the workplace. The policies need to be clear and easily accessible to the employee. Many US companies would have their policies posted on their internal websites where an employee can review them at anytime. The information normally spells-out that any use of company facilities or equipment garners the right for that employer to monitor it at any time. This could include their email system, voicemail system, company phone, company car, etc. To be honest, I think arguably the places where an employee can expect reasonable privacy are within a more enclosed areas. One of the most enclosed...
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...Responsibility HCS 335 Deborah Laughon February 5, 2012 Administrative Ethics Abstract of Article: Administrative Ethics and Confidentiality/Privacy Issues This article presents a case study highlighting the conflict between an individual’s right to privacy and the rights of patients and staff to know when a professional standard has been breached. The process by which the administrator determines a course of action is reviewed in the context of workplace realities through an ethical analysis. The growth of information systems and the increased involvement of third parties in decision-making have created new issues regarding confidentiality and the release of sensitive information for health care personnel who are in a position of public trust. The issues facing nursing administrators are complex, and of particular concern are the conflicting demands of providing quality care with limited resources. The authors identify strategies to deal with the workplace issues that give rise to the potential for abuse as well as the strategies to support an impaired colleague who attempts to reenter the workforce (Badzek, Mitchell, Marra, & Bower, 1998). Introduction When asking the general public what health care ethics and health care privacy mean, most will relate that they are about protecting patients. Health care ethics and health care privacy do exist to protect patients and to ensure that care is delivered with moral and ethical standards. Health care ethics not only apply to patients...
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...Employee Privacy Report Name COM/285 August 7, 2010 Instructor Employee Privacy Report Introduction The right to privacy is an inherent expectation of all citizens; however, the private citizen should not assume that he or she is afforded the same privacy protections at their place of employment. In fact, employees may find themselves more vulnerable. Other then the constitutional and legal requirements, employers have more latitude when it comes to delving into matters that some employees would otherwise consider personal and private. Therefore, it is important for employees to be aware of his or her privacy rights in the workplace, including policies regarding use of e-mail and Internet. Email and the Internet undoubtedly has revolutionized the way the entire world communicates. The irony is this technology erodes the expectation of privacy because users expose themselves to personal identity theft and it proliferates illegal and malicious activities such as child pornography; harassment; cyber attacks on personal and business networks; and attempts to steal intellectual property. All of this comes with a personal, legal, and financial cost, especially for businesses. Therefore, to protect themselves from legal action and monetary damages, it is necessary for businesses to implement policies that govern the appropriate use of their electronic systems. A Real-World Example of Email use, Internet use, and Privacy policies To demonstrate existing...
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...American Management Association (AMA), the top two reasons employers provided for monitoring their employees were performance evaluation and quality control. Workplace monitoring may sound wrong, but it provides many benefits to an organization and its staff members, such as lower operating costs and high production rates. However, in the process of monitoring employees, employees’ privacy rights are violated mainly through computer monitoring, telephone monitoring and background checks. Productivity is one of the main reasons cited by employers for introducing electronic surveillance and employee testing to the workplace. Employers believe that corporate survival demands continuous improvements in employee productivity. Errors, poor products, and slow service hurt business. Therefore, monitoring and testing to identify and correct these problems are considered to be sound management practices (Wright). However, the following will analyze privacy in the workplace from an ethical point of view using three workable theories: Kantianism, Act Utilitarianism, and Social Contract Theory. Privacy...
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...above question. Texas is an At-Will employment state and since our company is located in Texas, this should make my job a bit easier, if I do need to terminate the employment of anyone. At-Will employment gives the employer or the employee the right to terminate the employment relation at any time. Dismissal does not have to be for cause, but I will need to be sure in each case that the situation does not fall into an exception to “At-Will”. The major exceptions are public policy and implied contract. There is also the exception of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing (NCLS, nd, a, Seg. 1), this last exception is not recognized in Texas(NCLS, nd, b). What exactly do these exceptions mean? Public policy basically protects employees from the actions of an employer that violate public interest. Examples would be as follow: Employees can’t be dismissed based on race, religion, age or gender or any other characteristic that falls within the civil rights purview. They must be allowed to fulfill their civic responsibility of jury duty or being a member of the National Guard or reserve. Employees must be free to file workman’s compensation claims or to organize and form a union. They can’t be forced to perform illegal or fraudulent acts. Finally, there can be no retaliation for any of the above, and especially in the case of whistleblowing (NCLS, nd, a, Seg. 2). The exception of implied contract is exactly what it sounds like. If a contract was implied...
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...computer use guideline or inappropriate use outline, one cannot hold someone responsible for disobeying the policy. However, I would definitely have tried to convey the incident to the management as an anonymous report, provided the company respected the right of the whistle blowers. 2. Is it important for this company to have such a policy in place? If so, how can the employment (labour) standards act in your province/territory help in drafting a policy on appropriate computer use? Computer is assigned to an employee solely to conduct company business. Using internet through computer for personal recreation is not only the violation of office decorum but also contains the risk of security breach. Virus or spyware/malware might contaminate the confidential company information. Spyware can allow unauthorized access the company password and other important information. These days, internet provides us with one click solution to all, as well as broaden the possibility of risk, especially when used to reach any pornographic or otherwise immoral, unethical website. This kind of practice in work place can result in embarrassment, sexual harassment, discomfort and dissatisfaction. Even if the management does not care whether the employee spending time online or not, the employee must know that there are certain web sites which should be kept off limits. This is a question of value and ethics. Still, in the real world, there are unethical people who will visit those forbidden sites...
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