Under the Looking Glass

Jessica A. Lewis

Introduction To Management

Steven Stovall

November 20, 2006

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Under The Looking Glass

Pssst, I have a secret to tell you; you are being watched!

“Who is it,” you might ask. “Could it be the government, your

neighbor, or maybe some psychopath?” Possibly all of them or

hopefully none of them but that is not who I am speaking of. You

will consider it a good thing when you find out who is watching

you because they are securing your future. So, just who is

watching you? It is your employer. Your employer can and should

monitor the workplace because they are liable for your actions,

ensuring the company and your job will remain secure.

The real truth in monitoring in the workplace, some would call

it invasion of privacy, is protection. Because we live in a post

9/11 world, it is a tradeoff in which we are willing to give up

some privacy for some security. Your employer wants to protect

the company’s assets, market edge, and most importantly its

employees. Employees are being monitored in their every day

actions. Whether it’s through your emails, your phone, or even

through your GPS device in the company car, “your employer knows

at all times” (Wang). “As it turns out, monitoring recorded

calls isn't a burgeoning new job opportunity, but rather just

another tool in the customer service department's arsenal.”

(Wickham). Simply meaning it can’t hurt its employees, but

rather help the company as a whole.

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Do we not all protect what is important to us? Your employer

has invested their time, money, and talent to build a future

that can support their family and yours. Monitoring the

workplace that they have labored so hard to build only makes

sense. If the business was yours and you had worked hard to make

it successful, would you want to know what was happening or

would you be complacent and look the other way?

Consider when you employ a babysitter. You invite them to your

house so you and your spouse can have an enjoyable evening out.

You have entrusted them with your most valuable possessions,

your children. A prior level of trust has been established

before hiring the babysitter for the time you are to spend away.

Once you are gone, the babysitter has at their disposal complete

access to your resources, such as the contents of your liquor

cabinet, Internet access, and telephone service. Do you have the

right to monitor what happens in your household?

After a relaxing evening out, you return to find everything

seemingly in order. A rundown of the evenings’ events are given

to you. You pay the babysitter and they leave, driving for

home. Your children are all tucked into bed, so you decide to

finish off your evening with a nightcap. You meander to the

liquor cabinet and open it to find some of your alcohol missing.

As head of your household, what right and responsibility do you

have to investigate this incident? Your children may be in

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danger of abuse, your reputation may be at stake, and the sitter

may be partaking of your alcohol even though they are under age.

Who ultimately is responsible in this situation? This quickly

could become a legal issue when the sitter leaves your home

under the influence of your alcohol. Your employer has similar

rights and responsibilities to their investments/investors as

well as their employees. They are ultimately responsible for

what you do with the resources that you find available in the

workplace.

Your banking, personal information, and family organization

are stored on your personal computer. While you do not mind

that the tool is used for the babysitter’s evening homework, you

want to be sure that they respect your private information and

pay due attention to their wards, your children. While you

hired the sitter to attend to your children, you are open-minded

and flexible enough to allow them access to resources that will

help them excel in their education. Yet, at the same time, you

expect that they are responsible enough to respect the freedom

that you have allowed with your resources while satisfying your

expectations of childcare. Prying into information that was not

meant for their eyes, meddling into another’s business, not only

is a breach of confidence, but takes away from the employees’

job responsibility. The employee utilizes a multitude of state-

of-the-art resources geared specifically to carry out the job

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that the employer hired them to accomplish. They can be used to

that end or privileges can be abused.

Telephone access is common in most homes today. How can this

tool be used improperly in the context of a babysitter? While

you have granted permission to the sitter to make use of your

family land line, you do not expect them to call long distance

unless in case of emergency or prior permission. You would not

like to have a young person who consistently calls 800 numbers,

thinking that no one would notice. Would you expect to

financially compensate them for talking to their friends all

evening yet neglecting your children? Do you have the right and

responsibility to critique your phone bill? To whom does the

phone and the bill belong? Again, the correlation is obvious.

The telephone belongs to the workplace and is needed to

accomplish the task at hand. While most employers allow

flexibility in phone usage, it is their right and responsibility

to discover and reprimand misuse of company equipment.

The old saying goes something like. . . “Burn me once, shame

on you; burn me twice, shame on me.” If you failed to monitor

your household and the babysitter began to abuse your children,

how would you find out? What terrible circumstances can you

conjure in your mind’s eye that might happen to your home while

in the care of someone other than yourself? Likewise, employers

are simply monitoring for “worse case scenario” incidents. A

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wise employer takes action to ensure that they have trustworthy

employees that do not infringe on company policy. “With 70

million U.S. employees accessing the Web at work each day and

surveyed employees admitting that they spend 1.5 hours goofing

off each week, Websense estimates that U.S. corporations are

experiencing US $85 billion each year in lost productivity”

(Powell, 2003, Web = waste of time? ¶ 1). After being burned by

an employee who has taken advantage of the graciousness of an

employer, the employer rightly begins to evaluate the work flow

and effectiveness of all company employees. This takes a

measure of good judgment to maintain employee morale without

compromising trust.

Suppose that your babysitter has abused the privileges of

working in your household. Considering the risk you are taking,

something has to be done. You release them from their work in

your home, opting for a more dependable employee. After you

have found the trustworthy replacement, are you a wise parent to

forego the occasional check-up? Does it mean that you lack

trust in the new sitter? I say no. It is your responsibility

to your children, spouse, and everyone involved to be

accountable and ensure that those in your household are

answerable as well. A reliable and trustworthy employee is

transparent. They have nothing to hide. They are not offended

when the employer checks up on them, as they are people of

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integrity and understand that with freedom comes great

responsibility. They are responsible to the employer while they

are on company time. They realize what is reasonably expected of

them as employees in the workplace in which they have agreed to

be compensated monetarily for that which they do. “Gone are the

days of the "work hard, play hard" ethic” (Sloan, 2002,

Discipline staff with a mouse ¶ 3). The employer simply wants to

preserve the integrity of the business, but also will be helping

to prune the employees’ character. This can be used to develop

fuller personal growth in the workplace if it is viewed as

constructive criticism. Not only will the job become easier,

one employee will find himself not having to carry the load of

his fellow employees.

However, some company’s let their employees know that they are

being watched. In the article, “Employer Snooping Measure Nears

Vote”, a bill is being put before the Senate about notifying

employees while monitoring them on their internet (Thibodeau).

Which makes sense, if you know you are being monitored, you are

more likely to behave with respect and responsibility. In the

article, “Better People Development”, it says, “Knowledge and

skills change the way we do work” (Chandra). This is meaning

more than one thing, but first thing’s first, it’s meaning if

people know they are being watched they will change their

behaviors. Secondly, it means just mental skills and knowing

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what you, as an employee, are actually doing to help the company

that you are working for. Even though the second thing doesn’t

have much to do with the subject matter, I know that this is a

factor as well. I’m sure if you teach the babysitter as to what

she is to do for the night, she will be sure that she obeys, but

if you don’t let her know she’s more than likely to do whatever

she wants. Ultimately, I’m sure if you let your babysitter know

that she’s some how being watched, she will act more

responsible. I’m not exactly sure what how you would tell her,

if you actually did install cameras in your house, but,

seriously, who would put cameras in their house? I hope no one

would have to go to that extent, but if you would have to, then

letting the babysitter know will ultimately result in a more

courteous respect towards you, your family, as well as, your

personal belongings.

Unquestionably, you are being watched. You are accountable.

It might be the government, may be your neighbor, but without a

doubt it is your employer. All involved in a business that

incorporates intermittent monitoring techniques will benefit.

For the employer, it streamlines unnecessary costs, maintains

company privacy, and protects its employees. For employees, the

benefits manifest themselves as accountability, evenly divided

workload, secure future employment, and character growth.

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Accountability . . . you can use it as an opportunity to grow or

to gripe. The choice is yours.

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