The privacy of an individual or an organization is of paramount significance and it almost every personal desire to have this provision in and out of the workplace. Privacy gives autonomy to an individual or an organization to either allow other people in their private space or not. This privacy could range from personal to corporate privacy in terms of space, or material aspects say financial privacy as well as working relationships privacy. When an individual or an organization feels that its privacy is privy to outside sources, the working environment may seem hostile and as a result may not be as productive and efficient as expected. Organizations and corporations are mandated to ensure that the privacy of their employees, documents and information is maintained to ensure the autonomy of the said company. Any breach of privacy of the said organization may have far reaching effects that may take a long time to recover from. This essay will delve more into this issue of privacy in the workplace by exploring the major aspects of privacy, ways of enhancing privacy and the effects of breach of privacy in the long run.
Constitutional Provisions on Privacy Issues in the Workplace
The federal and state regulations in the US have outlined on how personal or employee privacy should be handled in the workplace. The Federal Constitution does not in particular terms recognize an individual's right to privacy, although the Supreme Court identifies various areas of privacy where the government is limited. These areas of privacy prevent the government from conducting intrusive actions against an individual (Fink 2014). However, the Court has made no clear guidelines when it comes to employees in the private sector, and these workers are forced to look into contract law to get protection from actions deemed to intrude into their privacy by the intrusive employers. On the other hand, most states have taken the issue of employee privacy with a lot of weight and incorporated employee privacy provisions in their respective constitutions. However, these rules do not include the employees in the private sector (Fink, 2014). These provisions indicate that employers are prohibited from intruding an employee's privacy unless the employer can justify a compelling reason to justify this kind of intrusion.
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Employee Privacy
Employees in many organizations are entitled to some particular degree of privacy as they conduct the regular activities in the respective organizations. The notion of employee privacy pertains to the fact that they are given autonomy to conduct organizational business without much intervention from their employees. More so the employees are entitled to privacy in terms of their confidential information which is usually gathered and stored by the management (SHRM, 2016). However, in recent decades, most companies and organizations have made it their business to monitor their employees, in particular through the use of webcams which are implanted in the various sections of the workstations. These gadgets are supposed to give feedback to the employers and management teams so as to closely monitor the workings of the employees to find out if the employees are competent or not. This is usually done by following every word the employee speaks to a client as well as every second the employee spends away from his or her workplace. This may be facilitated by the onset of technological advancement here most of the employee may end up spending most of their time on their computers and phones chatting endlessly on the social media (Holland, 2012). In the new age of computers, most of the employees spend nearly eighty percent of their working time on their computers. This is so because most business transactions are done online as there is need to send and receive emails, invoices, orders among others. If not properly monitored, the employees can leak an organization's information unknowingly to malicious parties posing as customers.
Investments into Technology to Enhance Organizational Privacy
Organizations across the globe are spending billions upon billions of dollars so as to invest in technologies which are aimed at facilitating the private lives of their employees since they are usually the primary suspects in the event of information leakage. Depending on the company needs, the market provides quite a range of techniques in regards to the monitoring of employees' activities in the workplace (Yerby, 2013). Consequently, the market offers hundreds of hardware and software solutions which are aimed at monitoring a broad range of activities in the workplace. Most of these solutions have the ability to monitor incoming and outgoing emails and chats, keystrokes typed internet connections, software installations, desktop screenshots, file usage, internet packet data among others (Yerby, 2013). These monitored activities are what most employees use in leaking organizational information, and the proper monitoring of such can save massive organization losses in terms of finances and corporate image.
Employers and management can set alerts that specifically notify them while their employees attempt to perform certain tasks likely to put companies' privacy in jeopardy or when this certain employee is not meeting the set productivity goals. This way the management can take the proper action before the situation turns chaotic or unmanageable (Ciocchetti, 2010). Failure by the administration to take the issue of privacy with the seriousness it deserves would see them give up their rights to other parties who may not have the best interests of the company at heart. This is so because it is the employees who spend most of their time in the workplaces as compared to the management who may be attending seminars and meetings outside the organization (Ciocchetti, 2010). Consequently, the privacy of the organizations' interests and operations must not be open to scrutiny to sources that are outside the company.
Organizational Privacy Challenges
With the increasing technological advancements which are subject to abuse and misuse more and more organizations around the globe are waking up to the reality of safeguarding the privacy of their organizations. This is majorly contributed by the fact that most criminals are turning to technology to pilfer into organizations where they collect confidential information which they use for extortions. Cybercrime which is a recent phenomenon has seen many organizations lose out on billions of dollars to these cyber criminals. What the cyber terrorists do is to hack into companies and the organization’s systems where they acquire passwords and access codes into their financial accounts. Once this is done, they are able to transfer huge chunks of cash into their own accounts. Sadly, this situation is getting worse, and countries are rushing against time to come up with policies that can be efficient and punitive to the perpetrators of such criminal activities. In addition, this situation is very critical since most of the perpetrators conduct this crime from other nations making it hard to prosecute them considering legal provisions across various countries.
The organizations have invested in access codes and passwords which are aimed at ensuring that outside sources do not access the organization's information. This is very useful in ensuring that an organization's data, statistics, financial statements and management plans do not leak to the public domain (Yerby, 2013). Consequently, the access codes and passwords are meant to keep outsiders who are not well-versed in the company's workings out of the company.
Pros And Cons of Monitoring Employees in an Organization
As discussed, more and more organizations are taking the issue of privacy in the organizations with a lot of weight. As much as this is a growing trend, one needs to give this practice clear thought before investing into it. This should, therefore, be done in the light of considering the merits and demerits. One major advantage of monitoring the employees' privacy is the fact that organizations are able to avoid losses which are quantified in terms of working hours and finances (Fink,2014). Employees who know that they are monitored in their handling and dissemination of information are more likely to work harder and efficiently to avoid being laid off. Furthermore, those organizations investing in technological devices meant to prevent the proliferation of information are assured that their information remains within the precincts of his organization (Fink, 2014). This will go a long way in ensuring that the organization’s brand and image remain intact and their competitors will not have a competitive edge against them.
A major demerit associated with ensuring an organization's privacy through employee monitoring is the acting hat the employees' motivation, self-esteem and morale may go down. This is caused by the fact that these employees feel that their every move is being monitored which may, in turn, belittle them as they feel as being mere machines working under some regulations (SHRM,2016). More so, intrusion into their privacy kills an employee creativity since he or she has to follow the set guidelines and trying to bring something new would be considered a way of leaking the organization’s information.
In conclusion, issues of privacy in the workplace has to do with ensuring that the employees well as the organization are kept away from harming way when it comes to the leakage of vital and confidential information. The constitution, though not clear gives some guidelines concerning employee privacy, but omits those of the private sector. Organizations are putting in place measures to monitor their employees who are more likely to leak information to the outside sources. However, before investing in such measures organizations have to put in mind, the pros and cons of undertaking such actions.
References
Ciocchetti, C. A. (2010). The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring . Retrieved from https://fpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/The_Eavesdropping_Employer_%20A_Twenty-First_Century_Framework.pdf.
Fink, J. K. (2014) .In Defense of Snooping Employers. California Western School of Law. Retrieved from http://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=fs.
Holland, P. (14 June 2012). The end of Privacy in the Digital Workplace. The Conversation. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/the-end-of-privacy-in-the-digital-workplace-7605.
Society for Human Resource Management (2016). Managing Workplace Monitoring and Surveillance. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/workplaceprivacy.aspx.
Yerby, J. (2013). Legal and ethical issues of employee monitoring. Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management, 1 (2): 44-55.
