Question

Is My Work Computer Really Mine? If you work, do you think you have a right to privacy at your job? What can your employer find out about you and your work? You might be surprised at the answers! Employers can (and do), among other things, read your e-mail (even those marked “personal or confidential”), tap your telephone, monitor your work by computer, store and review computer files, monitor you in an employee bathroom or dressing room, and track your whereabouts in a company vehicle. And these actions aren’t that uncommon. In fact, some 30 percent of companies have fired workers for misusing the Internet and another 28 percent have terminated workers for e-mail misuse. What are your feelings about, if you were an employee and also if you were an employer Find examples of how these issues have created either legal or hostile issues at workplace. How will you manage your employees if you were running a company or a division. Now for than ever, when many people are working from home, what could be the challenges for managers? discuss

Answer 1

If I talk about form the employee perspective then I would want the right to privacy, there could be my personal stuff on the computer that I would not want anyone to see, there could be browsing that I might do after the office hours and I should not be held liable to disclose that so as an employee I would say I am against this and would never appreciate this. These activities would have created hostile issues as an unhealthy environment would be created wherein employees would start doubting everything, they might not have open conversations and might not feel comfortable talking to people or working over the computer which is obviously not beneficial for the company.

I would manage my employees in a different manner. I would try and create an environment of trust and credibility wherein I will make sure that their computers are not traced but in return would expect all honesty towards the work. I might trace the communications form the outside servers so as to ensure that the data is safe but would not spy on tem, this will help me gain the trust of employees and in return I would get better productivity.

Working from home could pose a lot of challenges for managers, they could not now trace the hours the employee worked, they cannot track the mishandling of laptops, the communication becomes a bit time consuming since the distance factor has come in and lastly who all uses that computer is not also in control now.