Effects of Monitoring on Employees

The information obtained from monitoring has led to employee terminations as well as lawsuits by employees claiming privacy. The most devastating effect of employee monitoring is the fear of losing one s job. For many of us, a job is the only source of a livelihood, and any sign of losing it triggers fear (Kizza, 2002). In addition to the fear of losing jobs, employee monitoring also causes the following problems:

Lack of trust among workers, supervisors, and management. Employee monitoring has the potential to undermine workplace morale and create distrust and suspicion between employees and their supervisors or management. As employees morale declines, production levels may begin to lower, and workers may turn to litigations, filing privacy lawsuits against their employers . One employee who experienced the problem in her workplace gave the following evidence to the privacy committee of New South Wales (Privacy Committee of New South Wales, 1995):

I am also concerned because of the effect it has on the work environment. I think it illustrates a lack of trust on the part of the employer of the employee, and I think this can only act to degenerate the relationship between the two. I also think that employees have a right to work relatively comfortably in their work environment, unselfconsciously, and I think this is impossible when you know that every movement is being recorded by a camera.
Stress. Employee monitoring may also add to high levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace because of constant monitoring of workplace behaviour. One study of employees monitored by electronic surveillance in the United States concluded that surveillance and monitoring are major stress factors in the workplace, with monitored workers reporting. For example Nussbaum (1991) cites a New York data processor whose boss kept flashing the message, You are not working as the person next to you on her computer screen. There are many cases like this arising from employee monitoring that lead to stress in a workplace.
Repetitive strain injuries (RSI). RSI is a set of work- related muscular skeletal disorders caused by repeated and prolonged body movement resulting in damage to the fibrous and soft body tissues like tendons, nerves, and muscles . RSI results when the demand on a person to perform a task exceeds that person s working capacity. Employees may fear to take frequent breaks from their work, required in order to fight RSI, for fear that their supervisors may regard them as being lazy. This fear may result in RSI.
Lack of individual creativity. Most monitored jobs do not require personal creativity. The employee usually is not allowed to vary the procedures, but must follow them to the letter. Employees also have a fear of exercising creativity that is outside normal procedures because they fear being questioned or even losing their jobs in case anything ever goes wrong.
Reduced or no peer social support. Monitored groups are always given separate stations where gadgets can monitor them in full view. So an employee must remain where he or she can be seen.
Lack of self-esteem. The isolation, monotony of work, and lack of freedom to vary job steps lower employee morale and consequently self-esteem. There is an attack on employees self-esteem implicit in the suggestion that they are bad enough or lazy enough to make monitoring necessary. In a sense, employee monitoring serves as a kind of indicator that the employer does not trust the employees.
Worker alienation. Worker alienation is the lack of worker freedom and control, purpose and function, and self-involvement in employees work. Alienation, according to Shepard (Shepard, 1971), is higher among workers in industries with automated technologies.
Lack of communication. Botan and McCreadie (1993) concluded that it is well established that information technology does affect communication. . . when information technology is used for surveillance it can [further] affect organizational communication by reducing or eliminating the need for individual workers to be involved in communication . . . workers are objects of information collection without participating in the process of exchanging the information, and seeking to participate may be a violation of work rules punishable by discharge .
Psychological effects. The mere presence of electronic monitoring in a workplace may give rise to the perception among employees that their comings and goings are being watched, even if that is not objectively the case. This may lead to adverse physiological effects on an employee thinking that privacy invasion may have been occurring.

Employers have a right to see that employees do not misuse facilities provided to them to create a good working environment and, therefore, be productive. Employers also have an obligation to provide a clear and concise Internet user policy to all employees. An enforceable clear user policy can lessen these effects on employees and can reduce the risks to employees and liabilities to the employer. A good user policy should address employee privacy, spelling out precisely what kind of privacy an employee has in each specific category of company employment. For each facility provided to the employee, specific employee privacy and levels of monitoring should be known. The policy must also clearly spell out what constitutes improper activities. For example, use of and sending jokes or other humorous items on the company e-mail system can and may be viewed as offensive or inappropriate. Also, visiting of Web sites containing inappropriate material such as nudity, sexually oriented material, violence, and illegal activities is often unacceptable. Proper e-mail use at work should be clear in the policy and to every employee who has e-mail access facilities provided at work. The policy should clearly indicate what types of e- mails can be received and sent privately, if any. The policy must also clearly state the company stance on downloads and copying of materials. What can and cannot be downloaded, and what can and cannot be copied must be clear. Software use policy indicating what type of software can and cannot be put on company computers must be clearly spelled out. And finally, the policy must be clear on what must be reported , once observed , on company property. For example, employees can be asked to report any unauthorized e-mail or Internet usage.