Question

The researchers measured the impact of software that monitors employee-level theft and sales transactions, before and after the technology was installed, at 392 restaurants in 39 states. The restaurants were in five “casual dining” chains."

"The savings from the theft alerts themselves were modest, $108 a week per restaurant. However, after installing the monitoring software, the revenue per restaurant increased by an average of $2,982 a week, or about 7 percent."

"The impact, the researchers say, came not from firing workers engaged in theft, but mostly from their changed behavior. Knowing they were being monitored, the servers not only pulled back on any unethical practices, but also channeled their efforts into, say, prompting customers to have that dessert or a second beer, raising revenue for the restaurant and tips for themselves."

"In the research, the data sets were sizable. For example, there were more than 630,000 transactions by servers tracked and collected each week over the course of the project."

Based on this research, do you think employee monitoring and surveillance are actually good things? Should companies employ more strategies to monitor employee behavior? What are the drawbacks to employee monitoring? Using the ethical models that we are learning in this class (Utilitarianism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, Ethic of Care), is employee monitoring an ethically sound practice?

Answer 1

Employee monitoring software is bad for unproductive staff. Providing the software tracks distractive behavior, the staff who browses Internet for personal use during paid hours get into relevant reports. Employers use the data to classify employees into productive/ unproductive to motivate correspondingly. That is why, inefficient employees are afraid of the monitoring practices and consider the employee monitoring software to be evil; whereas productive workers benefit from the software reports.

Unproductive staff are afraid to get into employee monitoring software reports.

In general, employee monitoring software is used to track attendance, Internet use by employees, their software use, and supervise active/idle computer time. The staff who is usually late in the mornings and leave their workplaces early get into the monitoring software reports on attendance. The employees often distracted from performing their responsibilities also get into the relevant reports on Top Facebook Use, Personal Internet Use, Top 5 Social Networks, etc. In case employees take often coffee breaks to socialize with co-workers, Idle Time report will show the tendency. Therefore, unpunctual and distracted staff hate employee monitoring software, the latest evidencing against such HR.

Spyware is bad in terms of being non-ethical and sometimes crossing the legal side.

What is more, the market also offers spyware. Spyware is a type of the monitoring software that crosses the legal line by tracking personal and often sensitive information of employees. If a monitoring software has a function of any content or keystrokes tracking, it could be classified as a spying one. Keystrokes track functionality is capable to disclose passwords, and content tracking may reveal religious believes, political views or health issues, which are considered to be sensitive information protected by law. Read more about spyware.

Why employee monitoring software is good?

Employee monitoring software is good when it contains no spy functions, monitoring employee productivity, – which gets really beneficial for high performers. Productivity-oriented monitoring allows businesses to learn who is working in the office, the monitoring being simultaneously non-infringing. For instance, no excessive managerial control (for instance, standing over employees backs and micromanaging) and zero spying functionality (neither content, nor keystrokes track) make employee monitoring software non-intrusive experience.

Employee monitoring software that tracks productivity is good for companies and efficient staff.

Staff who is good in performing their responsibilities may really benefit out of the monitoring practice. When a boss knows about his/her employees’ loyalty in terms of persistent efficiency in performance – that is punctuality multiple no workplace distractions – the management begin to value such staff and there arises a need to retain them. Career promotions and monthly/annual bonuses are some of the ways of talent retention practices. However, there could be exceptions, creative professions requiring flexible schedules and non-conventional leadership.

Quality employee monitoring software facilitates business aims achievement.

Moreover, employee monitoring software is good, because a number of business goals could be solved due to the monitoring. It justifies overtime claims, opens outsourcing doors (as it doesn’t matter where employees re located if they are monitored), boosts corporate productivity, allows staff to work from anywhere, improves working habits, etc. The application of quality employee monitoring is good both for employers and productive staff! Learn more about quality monitoring software features.