Today's technology is amazing; we can carry around everything from music in our MP3s to our life in our computers. We can talk to people on the other side of the globe for no money at all and almost predict certain things like stocks with the advanced calculations our computers can make. And there's no doubt that it will keep on developing. However, surveillance is just one of the two faced parts of the development within technology. On one hand it's been a huge access within police and military forces, to help prevent crimes and terrorism and capture criminals. On the other hand, as presented in "Snooping bosses", it also simplifies violation of our privacy.
Are there any valid reasons to snoop at your employees? No, I definitely don't think so, snooping does not make you're staff members more effective, that only leads to distrust and an unreliable relationship between workers and employers according to me. Snooping is what makes surveillance wrong and unethical, especially when the bosses starts collecting information from the employees private life. I don't think that any companies has as a company policy that the boss is to act as an upholder of the law before his/her staff members. And if a staff member is to hold a position where he/she handles delicate information about the company, the boss should hire someone trustworthy and not someone he/she feels the need to snoop on. And if he/she absolutely needs to monitor the employee, he/she should let him/her know about it before the person in question agrees to take the job.
Which leads me to the following question; are there any good reasons to monitor your employees? There are many different opinions regarding this issue, but I actually think there is. If you inform your staff members of it. I believe there is a huge difference between snooping at and monitoring your employees with their knowledge. By letting them know they're being surveyed, I think you can make your company more effective, especially for example when studies show that a very high percentage (which is not so surprising) of staff members spend most of their time at work surfing the Internet. I also think it's fair to check up on a staff member who has suspiciously many sick days or any sick days at all actually, to make sure no one plays truant from their work. But the question is; how far should it be allowed to take the monitoring? To that I don't have any good answers, except that it should not be allowed to survey your staff outside of working hours and not without their knowledge.
There are many ways to look and think of this issue, and we all have our own privacy limits. I can see the advantage with for instance being able to track down company betrayers and survey your employees dirty private life, but according to me surveillance needs to be used with guidelines and fair playing rules. But who is to decide which guidelines and rules should be followed? My opinion, at least after reading "Snooping bosses" is that bosses have every right to monitor his/her employees with their knowledge, during their time at work. But what the staff members do when they're not at work is either his/her own business or the polices. And snooping is out of the question, it should not be allowed. Any conclusions beyond that should be made by someone with more knowledge about surveillance than me.
Are there any valid reasons to snoop at your employees? No, I definitely don't think so, snooping does not make you're staff members more effective, that only leads to distrust and an unreliable relationship between workers and employers according to me. Snooping is what makes surveillance wrong and unethical, especially when the bosses starts collecting information from the employees private life. I don't think that any companies has as a company policy that the boss is to act as an upholder of the law before his/her staff members. And if a staff member is to hold a position where he/she handles delicate information about the company, the boss should hire someone trustworthy and not someone he/she feels the need to snoop on. And if he/she absolutely needs to monitor the employee, he/she should let him/her know about it before the person in question agrees to take the job.
Which leads me to the following question; are there any good reasons to monitor your employees? There are many different opinions regarding this issue, but I actually think there is. If you inform your staff members of it. I believe there is a huge difference between snooping at and monitoring your employees with their knowledge. By letting them know they're being surveyed, I think you can make your company more effective, especially for example when studies show that a very high percentage (which is not so surprising) of staff members spend most of their time at work surfing the Internet. I also think it's fair to check up on a staff member who has suspiciously many sick days or any sick days at all actually, to make sure no one plays truant from their work. But the question is; how far should it be allowed to take the monitoring? To that I don't have any good answers, except that it should not be allowed to survey your staff outside of working hours and not without their knowledge.
There are many ways to look and think of this issue, and we all have our own privacy limits. I can see the advantage with for instance being able to track down company betrayers and survey your employees dirty private life, but according to me surveillance needs to be used with guidelines and fair playing rules. But who is to decide which guidelines and rules should be followed? My opinion, at least after reading "Snooping bosses" is that bosses have every right to monitor his/her employees with their knowledge, during their time at work. But what the staff members do when they're not at work is either his/her own business or the polices. And snooping is out of the question, it should not be allowed. Any conclusions beyond that should be made by someone with more knowledge about surveillance than me.
3 kommentarer:
I find your blogpost on "snooping bosses" really interesting. Surveillance of the employees is one of the backsides of the development of the technology. I agree that there is a difference between snooping on the employees without their knowledge and monitoring the employees with their knowledge. I also find the question 'how far is to far' very hard to answer
I think your blog about “snooping bosses” was really good. I agree with your thoughts. If the bosses have relevance, like you wrote if one employee has many sick days, the bosses could start to research what the problem is. Yes it is hard to say who shall decide the guidelines for the monitoring and when the monitoring has gone to far.
Hi Catharina,
I think you have many interesting thoughts about the article "Snooping bosses", and I do agree with you in many of them. If the employer inform his/hers employees that they are beeing spyed on, I think that it is okey but only of course when they are at work. It is NOT okey to spy on them on their private time! It is very hard to say who shall draw the guidelines and decide about how far is too far, but neither me like you, think I have the knowledge and all the informations, to do that.
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