WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE

Influence Of Workplace Surveillance On Managing People At Work

Influence Of Workplace Surveillance On Managing People At Work

Introduction

Workplace surveillance and monitoring is an important and essential tool to get the successful performances from the employees. The implementation of new technologies in the workplace has dramatically changed the way of managing wok. The digital technologies have provided the employers with the effective tools that have changed the way of managing employees at the work places. Although the implementation of technologies in the workplaces has increased the costs to the organizations but at the same time these technologies have increased the risks for the employers. These risks are related to the unfair use and misconduct of the technologies by the employees. Employee monitoring and the workplace surveillance involves, the watching and monitoring of the actions and conducts of the employees in using the assets of the employers at the workplace during the working hours. On one hand the workplace surveillance has improved the effective productivity of the employees but on the other hand it has also increased the risks to the employers. The technologies are implemented in the workplaces and the employees are allowed to use the technology for their job purposes. But in most of the organizations, where there is not effective monitoring of employees, there are issues of technolgy property theft and misconduct of the technologies.

The work place surveillance and the employee monitoring has now, in the today's era, become the necessity for the effective and efficient management of employees but it is also becoming an increased controversial issue because of the complexity and because of the increased usage of technology that restricts the employees. The work place surveillances are carried out to discourage the employees at the workplace from engaging into unproductive activities such as online shopping, playing games and using social media etc. during the working hours.

In well managed organizations, the surveillance systems are kept hidden from the employees to observe the employees' activities. The monitoring systems are not only placed in the premises where the employees conduct their work activities, but also the monitoring and surveillance systems are placed in the systems such as comouters and tools that are used by the employees. Many employees are not aware of these monitoring systems. Some employees feel that their activities are unnoticed by their employers and they assume that their activities are remained private from anyone.

According to Arendt (2004), the work place monitoring requires the adequate planning, clear and fair policies and the detailed procedures. It is the responsibility of the employers to carefully monitor the employee e-mails and internet usage activities. There are always the sensitive issues related to the trust and loyalty of the employees. The surveillance systems must be managed and addressed to the employees in order to protect the culture of the organization.

In the United States, many of the employers use employee surveillance equipments. According to the survey conducted by American Management Association Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey in the year 2007, half of the ...