Julie vs. Newport Electronics

Chad Laske

Central Washington University

Cathy Busha

IT Security and Ethics

May 10, 2014

Julie has not been treated fairly in the Newport Electronics case but unfortunately it was not a wrongful termination. Newport Electronics had the legal right to do what they did. “The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution stipulates the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” But this right applies only to the government and not to private organizations.” (Spinello, 2014) In many corporations, there are very specific policies about the use of company equipment and the monitoring of employee activities on that equipment. In Julie’s situation, she never sent the email in question and monitoring tools picked up alert words that made her company officials want to review it. I think Newport should have investigated the situation more thoroughly and given her a warning instead of firing her. Often times, employees actually use typing something out as a means to vent their frustrations in order to move beyond a particular situation. This is actually a good management tip so that you are not venting your frustrations as they are happening. Remove yourself from the situation, write it down, consider your tone and decide if it’s worth continuing once you have had a chance to calm down and think the situation through a bit more.

Monitoring of employee activities are becoming more commonplace. “Employers are particularly keen on monitoring clickstream data and website activities because they are anxious to find out who has been wasting company resources at recreational sites.” (Spinello, 2014) There are good reasons to keep an eye on what your employees are doing. For example, making sure they are not revealing any trade secrets or leaking any promotional information out to competitors and it’s even helpful in performance managing and coaching your employees. This practice is not going away but I do believe employers should do a better job informing and educating their employees about monitoring and clearly telling them what their expectations are.

In the Newport case, I believe they would have had a stronger case about Julie’s insubordination if she would have actually sent the email. If this were actually the case, Julie hadn’t even talked with her direct manager first and going directly to the VP of Human Resource would have been seen as insubordination. In my opinion this was not a true reflection of an insubordinate attitude of an employee but one of someone that was frustrated and needed an avenue to release the frustration. It would have been a great opportunity for Newport to coach their employee and remind her of their policies.

“This dispute over workplace privacy, however, is fraught with many ambiguities and complexities, and it will probably never be resolved to the satisfaction of all the relevant stakeholders.” (Spinello, 2014) This is probably a very true statement but we need to strive to work at our best as employees and the same is true for employers. Technology and the use of it is only going to increase and so much more effort needs to be done to recognize each other’s need for it. I believe with open communication and transparency, a middle ground can be reached so that both stakeholders can be productive.

Bibliography

Spinello, R. A. (2014). Cyberethiscs Morality and Law in Cyberspace. Burlington: Jones and Bartlett Learning.