Electronic Surveillance and Covert Non-Constraining Control

Employers might use electronic surveillance in the workplace to practice covert non-constraining control, though in conjunction with other management strategies rather than on its own. Surveillance in the workplace is not a new phenomenon . As the Victorian Law Reform Commission notes, Surveillance and monitoring of workers has a history that long precedes the advent of such devices as the video and sound recorder, telecommunications interception devices and e-mail monitoring programs (Victorian Law Reform Commission, 2002,p . 29). Nor are the uses to which workplace surveillance may be put, necessarily altered by the introduction of electronic surveillance. The introduction of electronic surveillance nonetheless provides a comprehensive form of oversight of workers behaviours that increases the opportunities for employers and managers to influence and control workers behaviours and values. Electronic surveillance enables monitoring of aspects of workers behaviours that were not previously monitored (e.g., voice and e-mail communications with coworkers and clients ). Electronic surveillance also enables monitoring in particularly intensive forms. It permits , among other things, the recording and careful reviewing of worker behaviour by one or more people and the display of recorded surveillance to workers.

We have discussed three forms of covert non-constraining control of others: manipulation of people s motivational attitudes, their informational attitudes, and their executive qualities such as skills, capacities , and habits. All three are, we have concluded, manipulations from which people have a right to be free. In relation to rights to psychological autonomy, the most significant use of electronic surveillance is as part of a system of subtle rewards and punishments used to distort agents attitudes or executive qualities in directions desired by the employer.

Continuous surveillance of all aspects of workers behaviours creates an environment in which they may find it difficult to resist compliance with guidelines for workplace behaviour set down by employers and managers, even where those guidelines are not coercively enforced. Behaviours that may be thus prescribed do not just cover behaviours that directly contribute to workplace performance, such as setting down the desirable rate or quality of workers output or conformity with the relevant laws and regulations. Guidelines for workplace behaviour can prescribe workers appropriate manners, choices of language, and working method,, and, in some cases, may even prescribe appropriate behaviour, while on breaks. For instance, if a worker in a call centre knows that employers or managers prefer workers to use a certain tone when talking to customers (always gently reasonable, or brightly upbeat), and that the worker s tone will be monitored, then the worker will probably do his or her best to use that tone. If workers know that their choice of language in interactions with customers or colleagues is monitored, then they will probably use the language preferred by management. Similarly, if workers are subtly encouraged to exemplify particular values in their workplace behaviours (e.g., as aggression or competitiveness ), they may well pursue , and even endorse, such values. ^{[ 6]} Two of the three kinds of covert non-constraining control may be furthered by the use of electronic surveillance in the workplace. Manipulation of motivational attitudes may be attempted by a number of means. Loyalty to one s employer might be encouraged by a system of subtle rewards and punishments, by encouragement and discouragement, and by requiring staff to engage in practices designed to promote loyalty. Some practices of this kind are described by Edwin Hartman as aspects of corporate cultures and include myths, symbols, and rituals such as singing corporate songs or repeating cautionary tales that reinforce values (Hartman, 1996). Hartman is careful to note that not all aspects of a corporate culture are planned and intended by employers or management, and this is undoubtedly true. Nevertheless, insofar as an employer or manager deliberately encourages workers to change their values unreflectingly to match corporate culture, manipulation of motivational attitudes is involved. Manipulation of executive qualities may be attempted by similar means, encouraging workers loyalty to their workplace, or other workplace-preferred values, while discouraging them from reflecting on these values. Another perhaps more potent means of manipulating executive qualities is by the introduction of value-laden language and procedures into the workplace. A term such as human resources, for instance, suggests and may encourage an instrumental attitude towards colleagues. Procedures also may be value-laden. For instance, a workplace might deliberately implement an environmental impact assessment procedure that treats the natural environment solely or primarily as a resource to be exploited, and that implicitly requires workers following the procedure to assess the natural environment in those terms. Repeated and unreflecting use of such a procedure may encourage workers to adopt the same attitude towards the natural environment. Finally, workers may be trained to use particular methods of thinking and reasoning in their work; this type of practice has been documented in the telecentre industry (Green, 1998; Poynter & de Miranda, 2000), and has the potential to encourage value change in workers; close surveillance of worker behaviour is essential to the effectiveness of this training.

We are less confident that manipulation of informational attitudes can be facilitated by the use of surveillance. Because this type of manipulation does not involve any change in an agent s autonomy capabilities, but is achieved solely by the suppression or distortion of information, compliance is not involved, except in those cases where workers are suspicious of the information given to them. Accordingly, electronic surveillance, it seems to us, will play a negligible role in encouraging compliance. This is not to say, of course, that manipulation of informational attitudes is never attempted in organisations; it may be attempted by limiting workers access to certain Web-sites, such as those for relevant union organisations or those containing criticism of or adverse information about the organisation. We claim only that the role of electronic surveillance in such manipulation is limited.

A further point is that electronic surveillance and the knowledge that it gives the surveiller about the surveillee can be used to distort or reduce autonomy in ways that are not directly linked to the advantage of the company for which the surveillee works, but are instead driven by the personal interests of the surveiller. Any such uses of surveillance to limit autonomy cannot be given even a prima facie justification by reference to the ( legitimate ) interests of the corporation in surveilling its workers. The possibility comes about because the people who administer electronic surveillance in the workplace do not necessarily serve the interests of the corporation alone, but may have their own reasons for attempting to manipulate others.

One example is the potential for electronic surveillance to be used for bullying . Electronic surveillance gives the surveiller an opportunity to observe and criticise trivial aspects of a worker s behaviour, or aspects of behaviour that are personal or otherwise irrelevant to the worker s performance. The surveiller may attempt to coerce the surveillee into certain types of behaviour, or to hold certain values and attitudes, or simply to make the worker unhappy . All such actions infringe on personal autonomy, even if the surveiller is unsuccessful in distorting or reducing it; nor do they serve any other morally acceptable end.

We believe that the case for rights to psychological autonomy is in principle a strong one. We acknowledge , however, that there are epistemic and practical difficulties associated with rights of this kind. The epistemic difficulty lies not in distinguishing intentional manipulation from unintentional influence in principle, but in applying this distinction to particular cases. If this distinction cannot be tracked clearly in practice, then protecting rights to psychological autonomy and redressing their infringement will be extremely difficult tasks . And it seems that the distinction may, indeed, be hard to track. Value-laden terms and procedures may be developed and introduced into a workplace without any intention on the employer or manager s behalf to manipulate workers attitudes or executive qualities. Similarly, motivational seminars might be conducted by an employer or manager without any intention of limiting a worker s personal autonomy. In such cases, even if a worker s personal autonomy is distorted , it will not be as a result of deliberate manipulation by employers or managers.

We do not offer here a comprehensive response to these concerns, but two points are worth mentioning. First, except in the case of workers whose initial capacities for autonomy are very underdeveloped, it seems unlikely that unintentional influences will have sufficient force to subvert workers personal autonomies to any great extent. Second, where this is not the case, an in-principle distinction nonetheless applies between influences that protect or further personal autonomy (thereby upholding psychological autonomy rights) and those undermining it. This gives employers and managers, at the very least, a moral obligation to consider choosing and promoting workplace measures that protect or further personal autonomy, even if infringements of personal autonomy sometimes go undetected. We intend to explore these issues in greater detail in future research.

^{[ 6]} Of course, a worker may autonomously accept the suggested value change if the worker reflectively considers and accepts it in a manner that satisfies the competency and authenticity conditions.