...Introduction Using e-mail, the Internet, and privacy policies at an organization is partially what an employee does daily. Properly using the Internet, e-mail and privacy policies is the responsibility of each staff member. Although staff used e-mails to communicate with employees as well as research the Internet for information related to the job, one would expect for certain information to remain private; however, it does not occur like this all the time. Businesses have in place policies where they have the right to observed employees activities during job. While it is important for employees to be mindful of their companies’ policies, it is more important to know that employers have the responsibility to ensure that their employees have been properly inform and made aware of these policies. When an employer provide an employee with a copy of the companies handbooks, the handbook should address such issues as electronic communication and Internet use while on company computers. Additionally, most companies policies states, whether “internet use and communication … are considered part of the company’s business” and “such communication are not to be considered private or personal to any individual employee.” However, some company’s policy also provides, that “occasional personal use is permitted” (Gavejian). What are the e-mail use, Internet use, and privacy policies at your job? Law allows employing organizations to monitor business telephone calls, voicemails...
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...average person does not go to work expecting to have big brother looking over their shoulder when they are using their computer. In this day and age the monitoring of computer usage has become more prevalent than it was in the past. As a computer user you have access to more resources on many computers that are just a few mouse clicks away. With your computer at work you can send emails to the four corners of the earth. Today, you can use the World Wide Web to get look at just about anything you can imagine. This includes pictures, sounds, and video. The desktop computer has become a very powerful tool in today’s workplace. There are downsides to this power too. Because of these downsides employers are finding it necessary to monitor what you are doing on your computer. Does this infringe on your privacy right in the workplace? Do you know what your privacy rights in the workplace are? When you are using your computer at the workplace to access you email your activities may be monitored without your knowledge. Companies are not monitoring what computer users are doing with their email. Do you send email to users on the Internet? Most if not all company Internet activity passes through a firewall. One of the functions of a firewall is to monitor Internet traffic coming into and out of the company’s computer network. If you are sending emails to Internet users your company firewall is monitoring whom it is being sent too and if they respond too you. Employers watch company email because...
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...SB/DMK/14/0010 CASE STUDY MONITORING EMPLOYEES ON NETWORKS: UNETHICAL OR GOOD BUSINESS?. LAUDEN & LAUDEN (2014), PAGE 296-7 Question 1. Should managers monitor employee e-mail and internet usage? Why or Why not? Employee email and Internet usage monitoring in the workplace may put employers and employees in conflict because both sides are trying to protect personal interests. Employees want to maintain their personal privacy while employers want to ensure company resources are not misused. Employers monitor Internet use in the workplace to protect their companies from legal problems that could arise if employees use company computers for inappropriate or illegal online activities, such as racist, sexually explicit or other potentially offensive materials accessed or traded by their employees which could result in adverse publicity. They are also concerned about a decline in productivity as some workers use the Internet to handle personal activities such as checking personal email, responding to instant messages or sneaking in a brief YouTube video which creates series of non-stop interruptions that divert employees’ attention from the job tasks they are supposed to be performing. More over Strict monitoring allows employers to spot potential problems early, get the information offline as quickly as possible and discipline the employees involved. Along with keeping an eye on what happens on internal computer...
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...Employee Monitoring: Employer Safeguard or Invasion of Privacy? Sarah L. Voorhees Employee privacy has been a controversial topic especially with the rise in internet usage, the popularity of social media increasing, and the addition of GPS to mobile devices. With these advances in technology there are numerous ways for employers to monitor their employees’ time at work. According to Evans (2007) as many as eighty percent of the employers, who employ twenty percent of the American population, monitor employees’ telephone conversations, e-mails, and voicemails. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology has made tracking the whereabouts of employees easier rather than tracking only information passed between employees and other individuals. The United States does offer privacy laws to help safeguard employees’ expectations of privacy; however, the laws are formatted around the physical realm such as desk drawers or an employee’s home, not an employee’s computer files or even social networking site (Riego, Abril, & Levin, 2012). It has become apparent that social media is here to stay. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have changed how people communicate in their daily lives and even how organizations do business. Employers have begun using social networking sites not only to market themselves but also as a human resource tool, making themselves accessible to potential customers and employees alike. Some of the ways employers have begun utilizing social...
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...monitored through telephones, computers, the internet, voicemail, telephone conversations, instant message and surveillance. The employee will want to pay close attention to the company policy on privacy and electronic usage as much of these items are unregulated as stated on the privacyrights.org website. Your employer can listen, read and monitor most of your workplace communications. Even if the policy is paid attention to the employee will need to ensure they understand the implications of the privacy policy as it can be hard to say how a judge might decipher the policy which became clear to me during our reading of privacy in chapter four of our text (Halbert 2009). It is important for the employee to know when the communication crossed the line from being private to being property of the company. A big issue these days is how email and internet usage can be monitored and an employee can potentially lose their employment over misuse. It is said that some 28% of employers have fired their employees over misuse of internet as stated on the privacyrights.org website. Phone calls are also monitored when employees have conversations with customers. It stands to reason if an employee has communications with customers the business would have a right to monitor these calls. If an employee has a personal conversation the employer is required to stop listening as soon as it is apparent the call is personal. If on the other hand an employer has specifically stated a particular phone...
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...Running Header: E-MAIL, INTERNET, AND PRIVACY POLICIES E-Mail, Internet and Privacy Policies University of Phoenix Com 285: Introduction to Business Communication Group: MEBSB039 May 5, 2009 E-Mail, Internet and Privacy Policies With the invention of the internet, many conveniences have been developed to help companies run more efficient. E-Mail was developed to replace standard written messages. This form of communication sped up the receipt of messages from one person to another. Internet and e-mail have become, and will remain a necessary tool for the modern business to succeed. The internet is also used as a way to communicate globally. For instance, a company with offices in the United States and the United Kingdom, now has the ability communicate information at the speed of light. With the advancement of modern technology comes the advancement of ways to steal information and violate the privacy of an employee or the company. Companies have put privacy policies in place to protect employees and the company. Information that could be misused and potentially harm the employee or put the company at risk could easily be sent over the internet through unsecured means. This paper is meant to discuss e-mail, internet use, and privacy policies at the place of employment of the writer. Secondly, we will discuss the laws put in place to regulate employee’s e-mail and internet policies. Thirdly, we will discuss the reasons...
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...Running head: EMPLOYEE MONITORING 1 Employee Monitoring: Employer Safeguard or Invasion of Privacy? Sarah L. Voorhees EMPLOYEE MONITORING Employee Monitoring: Employer Safeguard or Invasion of Privacy? Employee privacy has been a controversial topic especially with the rise in internet usage, the popularity of social media increasing, and the addition of GPS to mobile devices. With these advances in technology there are numerous ways for employers to monitor their employees’ time at work. According to Evans (2007) as many as eighty percent of the employers, who employ twenty percent of the American population, monitor employees’ telephone conversations, emails, and voicemails. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology has made tracking the whereabouts of employees easier rather than tracking only information passed between employees and other individuals. The United States does offer privacy laws to help safeguard employees’ expectations of privacy; however, the laws are formatted around the physical realm such as desk drawers or an employee’s home, not an employee’s computer files or even social networking site (Riego, Abril, & Levin, 2012). It has become apparent that social media is here to stay. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have changed how people communicate in their daily lives and even how organizations do business. Employers have begun using social networking sites not only to market themselves but also as a human resource tool, making...
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...Where 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...
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..."Should employers be allowed to monitor personal communication of its employees?" Ellen Berkeley, Amy Davis, Shawn Molloy, Deborah O’Leary, Karey Raubenheimer BCOM 275 October 31, 2011 Professor Tom Melpolder Although organizations have monitored employees for centuries, a number of developments have greatly expanded the amount and scope of employee monitoring. For example, recent technological advances have dramatically altered the nature of work, the working environment, and employee–employer relationships. As a result, information technology has emerged as an integral part of today’s organizational infrastructure. These new technologies have the potential to improve worker efficiency and effectiveness. However, there are risks associated with any new technology including the potential for employee abuse resulting in negative consequences (Alder, Kuenzi & Schminke, 2008). Private communication such as e-mails and social media in the workplace has emerged as one of the stickiest legal issues of the electronic age” (Cappel, 1995). The debate is divided. One side believes that employers should not have full control over its employee’s personal communication. Their view is that employees should have the ability to communicate with friends and family while on breaks, as long as productivity isn’t affected. Further, they believe that employees have a privacy right and should be allowed to communicate while at work without being monitored...
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...When it comes to monitoring of employees at the workplace it is already very common and already established in many businesses. There are many employers that monitor employee arrival times. The majority of business that handle any kind of currency monitors the way that the currency is handled to ensure that it is being handled correctly and professionally. Most organizations monitor the accuracy and quality of employees work. Nevertheless, a surprisingly large number of organizations still do not effectively monitor the manner in which employees use their computers and that can be an extremely costly oversight. The misuse and abuse of computer equipment can have serious costs for an organization and should be monitored at all times. Lost productivity is one problem that occurs without employee monitoring. Personal surfing has become an enormous habit for many employees and an emerging problem for employers. Employees can shop, play games, chat, watch and share videos and surf the internet all during working hours without monitoring. The amount of time that is lost to cyber slacking varies immensely among organizations, but most studies put it in the region of 2.5 hours per employee, per day. Multiply that 2.5 hours by the number of employees and the average hourly pay rate in your organization, and you will have an approximate estimate of the cost of cyber slacking (Turner). The Social networking site, Facebook, was recently labeled a social not-working site after a study by security...
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...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 these new changes, and employees’ rights as well as current regulating federal and state laws regarding electronic mail and Internet use. Employees Accessing the Internet After conducting...
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...Checkpoint - Monitoring Employees on Networks Jorge Hernandez IT/205 March 14, 2014 DEBBI MCCLOUD, MSCIS Checkpoint - Monitoring Employees on Networks Answer the following questions in 200 to 300 words each: How does e-mail benefit an organization? Why might an organization want to limit how an employee uses e-mail during work hours? What is an e-mail’s path once it leaves an organization? E-mail can benefit an organization by offering quick, efficient and relatively inexpensive means of communication, both internally and externally, for an organization. It also allows paperless communication and via the use the Global Access List (GAL) military directory, quick access to all other employees/service members. Since email first emerged as a business tool, the military along with many companies have increased productivity, decreased costs and found new marketing venues. It has effectively decrease the layers of management because everyone in a company can email the company president with ideas, suggestions or comments. In DISA for example, our boss has what we like to call “an open door policy” which can be utilized to provide feedback to the boss directly. In DISA, this is useful because management can obtain opinions from the front lines, which helps stay in touch with the day-to-day operations and field experiences the employees. Suggestions and ideas received from those at lower help spur innovation and create new revenue streams for the business. Email is...
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...Internet Abuse in the Workplace Internet abuse in the workplace is an issue that impacts employers in various ways including time, money, and productivity. Monitoring websites have found “that more than 50% of employees use the Internet for personal reasons during an average work day” (Young, 2010, p. 34). Research shows that employees are spending about 3.24 hours on non-work related websites in an average day (Young, 2011). Internet abuse issues are so prevalent that employers are faced with how to enforce internet policies and finding ways to restrict and manage this problem. This essay will address how Internet abuse impacts productivity, customer service skills, draining on network resources and legal liabilities. Productivity and customer services suffer when personal internet use is abused during work hours. Internet abuse distracts employees and may reduce productivity and customer service. In result, this can lead to a company’s reputation being damaged or even destroyed (Young, 2010). Employees that surf the internet can slow down response time in assisting customers or fail to meet deadlines and may fail to complete a task effectively (Young, 2010). If these problems are not addressed, they can cause an employee to produce unsatisfactory products or expectations which overtime can hurt or destroy the employer’s creditability. To help prevent an employer from losing their creditability employers are becoming proactive and implementing policies that help employees...
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...What can an employer learn about an employee by using this software? NetVizor is network employee computer monitoring software that invisibly monitors your entire network from one central location! NetVizor employee computer monitoring software can be remotely deployed across your network from a central location, allowing you to see and record everything that users do, perform remote administration tasks, view what users are doing in real-time, and generate comprehensive network activity reports. NetVizor can protect your network assets by alerting you in real-time when users modify files, move computers, transmit data to other locations, or even when they use a portable drive. From SpectorSoft Web site: The Spector Pro keylogger will instantly inform you whenever they type, or even simply view, any “alert words” or phrases that you specify. Spector Pro continuously looks for alert words in everything they type, every web site they visit, all chats/Instant Messages and in each email sent or received. Every time a keyword is detected, Spector Pro will immediately email you a detailed report of when, where and how the keyword was used. That really depends on what computer tracker you decide to use. For example, Spector Pro will record email, chat, web sites visited from places like MySpace or Facebook, peer to peer (also known as P2P) activity, programs launched, keystrokes typed, and snapshots which is much like a surveillance camera pointed directly at the monitor, secretly...
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...information technology usage, employee monitoring. Also, legal issues in workplaces such as lawsuits have emerged. Both employers and employees are worried about the ethical consequences resulting from the ethical issues While bosses use surveillance devices to keep track of their workers' activities and output, these workers feel that excessive monitoring is an attack on their confidentiality and privacy. The strategy of checking workers on a timely basis is contributed by the fact that bosses have rights over everything in the “at-will employment environment.” Additionally, this paper provides a proposal for reducing the ethical and legal issues. The paper also encourages organizations to generate and efficiently communicate ethical standards for workers in their companies. It also includes real examples of workers' perceptions as well as an emotional state from the surveys based on ethical and legal issues raised regarding the topic of study. Keywords: At-will employment, employee monitoring, Ethical and legal issues. Introduction At- will means employment can be terminated at any time, for any reason or no reason without facing legal action. Likewise, an employee can quit a job with or without a prior reason at any time with no legal action against him or her. Also, At-will means, employment relationship terms including, altering wages, benefits termination or reduction of paid time off; can be effected without notice and no legal action against the employer (Katherine, Stone...
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