How Surveillance Operates At The Workplace And Whether It Has An Impact On The Employee Performance or Behavior.
In the modern organizations, most of the employers monitor their workforce. The employees are motivated by the factor that the employees should spend their time in the organization in the most effective manner. Surveillance is a process of keeping close watch over anything. Surveillance came into existence after the development of new technologies like cameras and hard drives. It has become an important process in the maintaining of modern day firms. Technology has empowered organizations to have greater control over performance that is delivered by the employees. Employers use Information Technology (IT) to monitor different aspects of workplace’s activities (Carroll, Brown, & Buchholtz, 2017). The employers can monitor different aspects of employee activities through computer terminals, email, and voice mail or surveillance camera. The thesis of the current essay is how surveillance operates at the workplace and whether it has an impact on the employee performance/ behavior.
In the present essay, various techniques for employee surveillance have been discussed. Further, the increased use of surveillance equipment has been discussed. The essay has also discussed the benefits and drawbacks of surveillance methods.
There are different ways of monitoring the work of employees. The employers can use the computer software, which enables them to collect information related to the search history and the computer storage in terminals and hard disks. The employers can also use software for the total login hours from the computer or idle time at the employee’s terminal. The keystroke monitoring is another surveillance technique, which analyzes how many strokes; the employer is striking each hour.
Email monitoring can also be used to monitor the employees of the organization. If an organization is using email system, the employer can review it content. The messages sent to the company or any other stakeholder can be easily evaluated by the employer. Similarly, telephone monitoring is also used at the workplace (Carroll, Brown, & Buchholtz, 2017). The employers can monitor calls with the clients or customers to evaluate the performance of the employees. These methods allow the business to track the activities of an employee at the workplace. The employee monitoring can be used to measure the productivity, employee attendance and enhancing security at the workplace. There are several reasons of monitoring employee at the workplace (Vermaat, 2013). The organization use monitoring to safeguard the employees at the workplace. However, it is important to assure that the information collected from surveillance is used for the intended purpose. It is used to measure the employee performance and this information can be used to motivate employees for superior performance.
Monitoring the workplace is also justified in some cases, as the employers accomplish it to safeguard their interest, the employees’ interest or the interest of the customers. However, it is acknowledged that the employees are entitled to some degree of privacy at the workplace. The Human Resource (HR) manager of the organization should focus on implementing policies so that the employees can maintain their privacy at the workplace. The Data Protection Act is established to maintain the privacy of an individual. There are certain activities, which prohibits the surveillance and monitoring activities. Further, monitoring should not be done in a manner that it does breach the privacy of the employees.
The structure of an organization influences the extent of employee monitoring. In flat organization, the employee monitoring is challenging in comparison to the hierarchical organization structure. In tall hierarchical structure, there are several layers of management between the frontline employees and the higher management. On the other hand, the flat structure denotes an organization, where there are only a very few layers in the organization. In tall structures, there is an opportunity for better supervision (Martin & Freeman, 2003). In flat organization structures, the number of employees reporting to each manager is high which provide high level of freedom to each employee.
In the recent years, there has been a significant controversy related to workplace monitoring getting too personal and intruding the privacy of the customers. The current methods are going beyond the traditional methods as they emphasize the use of portable devices for monitoring the employees. Recently, Amazon has won the patents for high wrist bands, which will be used to promote the e-commerce warehouse and distribution staffs. These devices are used to track the hand movements of the workers as they fill the warehouse of the organization (Marotti, 2018).
Moreover, there are a few companies which are trying to develop devices, which can be implanted under the skin of the employees. These microchips can be used to enter high security area. With this technology, the employees will no longer be required to fumble with electronic cards or passes (Reed, 2018). However, it has reduced the employee productivity and satisfaction with the organization. Monitoring reduces the engagement of the employees with the organization (Reed, 2018). The organization can reduce the resistance of surveillance by educating the staff regarding its need.
The organizations should make sure that they limit the probe and monitoring at the workplace (Chang, Liu & Lin, 2015). There are several organizations such as Google, which are using employee monitoring to upgrade their human resource policies. It is a data obsessed company which offers target marketing by collecting demographic information about the internet users. The company has employed a sophisticated data tracking program, which can be used to gain empirical information about the personal lives of the organization. The company has made several changes in its HR policies with this technology. The company uses the employee’s data to analyze the impact of incentives to optimize the incentive structure of the organization. One of the most common examples of this approach is that the company extended the maternity leave to five months, after the company realized that the organization is suffering from a high employee turnover rate as many women or new mothers are leaving the organization.
According to the data, the company extended the maternity leaves to two more months. It did not cost extra to the organization; however, the company saved a lot as the recruitment in extremely costly for the organization. Furthermore, Google is also collecting data regarding the optimal lunch hours and trivial details such as the optimal size and shape of the cafeteria tables (Reed, 2012). It will increase the performance of employees and increase their productivity.
In the present era, call centers have made the optimal use of surveillance technique. It is a service-based industry; therefore, the performance of employees has a significant impact on the overall customer satisfaction. The call center monitoring refers to the constant process of data collection, data analysis and feedback of the employees. The companies collect the data related to the performance of the employees such as employee efficiency, customer attrition and the speed of execution of each call (Pierce, Snow, & McAfee, 2015). The call center strategies impact the customer satisfaction, employee retention and performance of the bottom line employees.
There are several advantages of the call center monitoring such as it results on improved service quality, enhance the consumer experience and reduce the overall employee turnover. The customer service representatives can provide better qualities by taking more calls, addressing the support issues in an effective manner and closing more sales in each call. With the improved quality of service, the company can provide better customer satisfaction as the customer will have better experience with the organization (Moussa, 2015). Monitoring the performance of employees can give deep insight to the performance of the employees. Moreover, it can also provide information regarding the morale and the skill-set possessed by each employee (Ciocchetti, 2011).
Recently, a large number of call centers have started utilizing the electronic performance monitoring. It aligns with the scientific management concept theorized by Taylor. According to this theory, the organization effectiveness or the employee productivity can be enhanced by creating regular small tasks. Moreover, scientific management or Taylorism also states that the worker performance should be monitored and the manager should provide high instructions and supervision to ensure that they are working in a proper manner. However, the employee supervision and monitoring reduces the overall work satisfaction of the employees.
The call centers are using human and technological resources to provide effective services to the customers. Although electronic performance monitoring is increasing the performance of the employees, it is an ethical dilemma as it intrudes the personal lives of the employees. The business managers can scrutinize the amount of time, employee invest in taking the calls, different types of calls taken by the employees and the average time spent invested in each call. The employers can also scrutinize the conversation of the employees, when the employees are not aware of the process (Lasprogata & King, 2004). There exists an ethical dilemma that the information captured is revealing the personal information of the employees. The employees may feel depressed, anxious and less productive regarding the performance of the employees. Similarly, other companies are also using different technological tools to track and monitor the activity of the employees at the workplace. Heat and motion sensors are used to record the number of hours; the employees are at their workplace (Chang, Liu, & Lin, 2015). There are reports that Deloitte is using credit card shaped devices to analyze the tone, pitch and volume of a person to explore information related to that person’s lifestyle sand behavior. Although the primary motive of employee monitoring is to enhance the productivity, it is creating an air of mistrust and suspicion among the employees (Schulman, 2001).
Therefore, it is important to establish a balance between employee surveillance and data privacy. Peer surveillance can be used to monitor the performance of the employees. It is an effective technique to monitor the performance of the employees as the employees do not feel monitored and the team members can regulate their performance. Peer surveillance refers to the process of watching one’s colleague’s performance and behavior. They can monitor any unusual activity and provide recommendations to improve the performance. The electronic performance monitoring (EPM) is used by the business organizations to monitor the performance of the employees in an organization. These systems can be used to evaluate the positive performance of the employees such as productivity, performance and safety of the employees (Tomczak, Lanzo & Aguinis, 2017). The employee surveillance can be used to improve the performance of the employees. The Focults or Panopticon surveillance theory can be used to understand the positive impact of electronic monitoring on employee performance. The panoptical effect refers to the phenomenon in which, the people under surveillance would feel pressure of constant authoritative watch and manage their behavior. The surveillance is the technology to support the managers and decision makers in the corporate world. In the workplace surveillance can be used to ensure that workers conduct their duties in a proper manner. It also ensures that the employees do not spend their time in an idle manner and focus on value generating activities. According to the theory, surveillance at the workplace through different means such as cctv camera is about empowerment and the management policy. Surveillance is the effect of management’s policy towards the employees. The management philosophy also determines the extent of electronic panopticon. Further, the perception of the employees that they are being monitored can have potential impact on the discipline of the employees (Gichuhi, Ngari & Senaji, 2016).
Conclusion
The managers are concerned that the employees should spend their time in the organization in the most effective manner. Therefore, the use of surveillance is becoming popular. However, the employees are concerned that such investigations violate their privacy rights. The theory of Taylorism and scientific management states that it is important to manage and motivate the employees at work. However, there is ethical issue regarding the extent of workplace monitoring carried out at the workplace. Most of the employees resent being monitored. Other than that, it is also a threat of employee privacy. It has negative impact the motivation of the employees with self-competence and high degree of motivation. However, several organizations have used employee monitoring in a good manner and used it to improve the human resource policies.
References
Carroll, A.B., Brown, J., & Buchholtz, A.K. (2017). Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability & Stakeholder Management. Cengage Learning.
Chang, S. E., Liu, A. Y., & Lin, S. (2015). Exploring privacy and trust for employee monitoring. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 115(1), 88-106.
Chang, S. E., Liu, A. Y., & Lin, S. (2015). Exploring privacy and trust for employee monitoring. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 115(1), 88-106.
Ciocchetti, C. A. (2011). The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty?First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring. American Business Law Journal, 48(2), 285-369.
Lasprogata, G., & King, N. J. (2004). Regulation of electronic employee monitoring: Identifying fundamental principles of employee privacy through a comparative study of data privacy legislation in the European Union, United States and Canada. Stan. Tech. L. Rev., 4.
Marotti, A. (2018). Amazon wristbands could track workers’ hand movements: ‘Employers are increasingly treating their employees like robots’. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. [Online]. Available at: https://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2018/02/21/Amazon-wristbands-could-track-workers-hand-movements-Employers-are-increasingly-treating-their-employees-like-robots/stories/201802210144 [accessed on: 1 May 2018].
Martin, K., & Freeman, R. E. (2003). Some problems with employee monitoring. Journal of Business Ethics, 43(4), 353-361.
Moussa, M. (2015). Monitoring employee behavior through the use of technology and issues of employee privacy in America. Sage Open, 5(2), 2158244015580168.
Pierce, L., Snow, D. C., & McAfee, A. (2015). Cleaning house: The impact of information technology monitoring on employee theft and productivity. Management Science, 61(10), 2299-2319.
Reed, B. (2013). How Google obsessively monitors its employees to make sure they’re the happiest in the world. [Online]. Available at: https://bgr.com/2013/01/22/google-employee-satisfaction-system-301717/ [Accessed on: 25 April 2018].
Reed, R. (2018). Workplace monitoring gets personal, and employees fear it’s too close for comfort. They’re right. Chicago Tribune. [Online]. Available at: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/reed/ct-biz-amazon-workplace-privacy-dilemma-robert-reed-0304-story.html [Accessed on: 25 April 2018].
Schulman, A. (2001). The extent of systematic monitoring of employee e-mail and Internet use. The Privacy Project, July, 9.
Vermaat, M.E. (2013). Discovering Computers & Microsoft Office 2013: A Fundamental Combined Approach. Cengage Learning.
Tomczak, D. L., Lanzo, L. A., & Aguinis, H. (2017). Evidence-based recommendations for employee performance monitoring. Business Horizons.
Gichuhi, J. K., Ngari, J. M., & Senaji, T. (2016). Employees’ Response to Electronic Monitoring: The Relationship between CCTV Surveillance and Employees’ Engagement. International Journal of Innovative Research and Development, 5(7).
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