Communication and Ethical P rivacy P olicies in a Workplace

1. Communication and Ethical Privacy Policies in a Workplace • The privacy ethics of a workplace states that even though it is important to monitor employee activities, there should be privacy especially when it comes to changing rooms, lockers and in the washrooms. • The main purpose of employee monitoring it to prevent the outflow of crucial private documents of a company but this should not go too far beyond the privacy limits. • Communication among employees themselves and phone call communications should not be monitored because this may act as a demotivating tool to employees.

2. The Ethical communication issues in a workplace • There are several ethical issues in a workplace. Some of them include • The downloading of pornographic materials by the employees and displaying them. This is likely to disrupt the busy employees • Having private web pages on the machines of the organization. This takes too much of employee’s time limiting the time spent on organizational work • Spending plenty of work hours in playing games • Online gambling • Downloading of some documents sent via email that may have viruses. The viruses could crash organizational computers and this negatively affects the smooth operations of the company

3. Measures Put in Place to Monitor Employees • Various measures have been put in place to monitor employees in order to protect employers interests. • There are no common rules but the technological measures put in place include: • Keystroke monitoring that physically monitors employees • Key loggers that screens all incoming and outgoing mails and sends those concerning sex, racism and mentioning of some body parts to the supervisor • Still some improved programs are joining the markets. The programs are even more invasive than the current ones.

4. Employees’ View on ethical issues • Employees may view monitoring actions such as viewing of private mail as invading their privacy and therefore not right. • The machines put in place to monitor employees are invasive because keystroke monitors do not allow the employees to spend even a minute to chat or even stretch • Some of the court rulings do not favor employees because the employers are allowed to search employees’ offices thoroughly incase a need arises. Employees on their side view this ruling as unethical

5. Employer’s perspective • According to employees, work ethics means that employees should only do the work they are assigned to do and any other activity within the organization is deviation from work. • it is the responsibility of employers to maintain their computers thus according to them, it is very ethical to put monitoring machines in place.. • Employers have the right to put in place tools of monitoring employees to prevent the outflow of crucial information that could affect the performance of their organization

6. Solutions to the ethical problems • Employers should embrace the use of mindful strategies that will address what they are to monitor and what not to monitor. • Organizations should put in place knowledgeable systems of management that can help in the effective monitoring of employees and give benefits of improved performance. • It is important for employers to know the employees who think that the personal computers they use are private. This can be helpful in cautioning such employees. • In order to improve employee productivity, organizations are entitled to employee monitoring but the monitoring systems should not go beyond the necessary things to monitor.

7. Laws relating to employees and communication privacy • Several laws have been put in place to protect employee privacy while taking into account employers interests. • The main reason for the existence of such laws is because in their absence, employers may exploit the privacy of their employees.

8. Telephone monitoring • Employers are entitled to monitor calls from clients or customers to ensure quality control. • States such as California have put provisions stating that a beep sound should follow calls to alert employees that they are being monitored. • The federal case laws puts exception to personal calls and requires that should the administrator notice that the call is private, monitoring should stop. • Private call monitoring is allowed in cases involving situations where an organization prevents the making of private calls.

9. Computer monitoring • The United States laws allow minimal computer monitoring and prevents unnecessary searching of an employee’s computer.. This is well stated in the fourth amendment of the US constitution. • California has some additional provisions that allows additional rights to employees. • Laws prevent the use of an organization’s computers for personal benefits.

10. The Use of Electronic Mail • The law states that any organization having a mail system is entitled to monitor it and screen the sent and received mail. • The voice mail systems should also be monitored according to the laws o various states. • Incase an employee files petition on cases involving privacy of mails, courts always decide in favor of employers and thus employees are subject to mail monitoring.

11. References • Yerby, J. (2013). Online journal of applied knowledge management. Legal and Ethical Issues of Employee Monitoring, 1(2), 44-53. • PRC. (2014, Jan 17). Workplace privacy and employee monitoring. Retrieved from https://www.privacyrights.org/workplace-privacy-and-employee-monitoring