The use of new communication technologies has allowed more effective communication both internally and externally of companies [a]. Email, instant messaging, and internal websites are some of the technologies being utilized to effectively correspond within the office. As these technologies are becoming commonplace, employees are more likely to spend significant portions of work time on personal tasks. Employers are becoming concerned that they aren’t utilizing their employees to their full potential and therefore many are opting to use monitoring software to encourage strong work ethics. From 1997 to 2004, the number of employers monitoring email has risen from 15 to 27 percent [h]. Employers should establish meaningful relationships as well as trust with their employees instead of relying on spying and lockdowns in order to thwart liability concerns.
As an employer, it is necessary that one be concerned with protecting itself from legal responsibility [h]. Unfortunately, this frequently means that trust is no longer a valid risk mitigation technique. Instead, many employers prefer using software monitoring to log all activity on a personal computer or detect prohibited behavior [b]. The key concerns from managers come from various different angles. One concern is that employees may view offensive or explicit content which could, and has in the past, lead to lawsuits taking place [c]. Another is that employee productivity may decline or viruses and similar problems may be introduced into the company infrastructure thus leading to downtime [a]. Each of these is a valid concern that could be addressed by monitoring and hindering employee accessibility – but this does not have to be the case.
Restricting technologies from employees could be the answer to all of the employers’ problems or it could become the problem. Limiting the reach of employees may be the first step in creating an environment with diminishing morale. According to [e], knowing how to build and sustain quality relationships will facilitate your personal and professional development—but you need a healthy environment. An environment where employees cannot be trusted may be hard pressed to be considered “healthy”. According to [b], there are few laws, particularly in the U.S., protecting privacy at work. Some managers and employees have met in the middle and agreed to use software that allows employees to access their personal content for one hour per day, at any time they wish [g]. This allows the freedom to rest the mind for a few minutes at a time without wasting hours and hours of company work time browsing eBay. This may alleviate managerial concerns over the time spent browsing but will do little to improve the situation that as much as 25 percent of employees’ work time is often spent on email correspondence [h]. Although the statistic is not obvious in whom the employees were emailing, it could just be that they have decided it is more efficient to send an email to a coworker instead of walking to the cubicle across the room. In this case, email may make the employee more productive.