Electronic Survellience of Employees

1. Explain where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace.

An employee can reasonably expect to have limited amount of privacy if he or she has an office with a door, if they have a partially enclosed cubical, on the phone, and on their computer terminals.

However, these items listed above are all company property and the company may choose to monitor your emails, and phone calls. In that case there should be a clause made available to each employee at the moment of hire that all calls and emails can and will be monitored at the discretion of the company. The corporation and the employees both have rights, and they both need to be protected and respected. While you are in the office and on company time it does not give them the right to invade your privacy by monitoring unless stated in your hiring contract. However, you should expect that you will have a limited amount of privacy to almost no privacy while you are in the workplace.

Privacy in the work place is virtually unheard of in the 21st century. "By 2003, 92 percent of employers were conducting some form of electronic monitoring of their employees (College, 2003)."

As the above chart demonstrates not only have employers used electronic surveillance in the workplace but, they have increased their usage over the course of two to three year intervals. It appears that email and internet usage where the most popular followed by video tape being less popular method of usage.

2. In the office workplace there are typically two types of workspaces, an open area, in which there are several desks and where conversations can be overheard, or in an enclosed office, in which-when the door is closed-conversations cannot be heard and where one would expect virtually total privacy. Explain whether it makes a difference if an employee is in an open area or in an enclosed office.

I think it makes a slight difference in an enclosed space. In an enclosed office you have some privacy because the closed door separates you from the rest of the open office area. However, there are thin walls. If for any reason your conversation gets elevated, or if you are a person that speaks loudly sound travels and voices carry. The person that passes by your office or even the office next to yours may not be able to hear your entire conversation but, they may overhear bits and pieces. Clearly, the privacy would exist but still be limited. I believe that in all workplace situations you have virtually no privacy because you are in a public environment.

It does not make a difference if an employee is in an open air or enclosed office. There is no privacy available. Employees that have an enclosed office also have to maintain an open door policy. Even, when the door to the office is shut generally speaking your co-workers can moderately over hear parts of your conversation.

I conducted two interviews both men in their forties. One works at Wal-Mart as a manager in an open setting. The other works in an enclosed space in the corporate structure of AT&T.

Wal-Mart Manager Stated - That we have to watch all of our employees to make sure that they are giving great customer service, and to make sure that they are doing what they are hired to do, and be where they say they are going to be. So often we find that employees are not always upfront with their employers. We do have security cameras and in addition to management in zoned areas. My job is to terminate people based upon facts and evidence. The surveillance and documentation helps me perform my job more accurately whenever I have to terminate someone. I can concretely back up the company's decision.

AT&T Manager Stated - Upon reporting to his office every step, phone call, email, and inter-office conversation is under some form of surveillance. You are video-taped from the parking lot, you have to slide a card through the reader which tells the computer you are available, then you sign onto your terminal and you are officially clocked in and starting your day. He reported that employers want to know what is happening at all times and they will go to no means to get the information that they require voluntarily or involuntarily. They are not interested always interested in whether you know about surveillance or not. They believe that you should expect it as long as you are in the workplace.

3. Explain if Herman's need to know whether his sales persons are honest is