For the last decade the issues of electronic surveillance and monitoring of employees at work became the focus of researches of management specialists. ES means using measures of electronic control over the work of employees, like video cameras, automatic devices monitoring telephone conversations or Internet usage, devices of automatic registration of entry and exit, electronic time control, etc.
Many practical researchers speak for using electronic control and electronic surveillance in the workplace. They say it can be a very effective tool for controlling the employees, detecting their faults, idleness and frauds. “People won’t steal or slack off if they know they’re being watched. The average employee is productive 30 minutes out of an hour. They spend the rest of the time chatting, making personal telephone calls, getting something to drink, or going to the restroom.” comments Maggie Morgan, a specialist of Sentry Surveillance in Kennesaw, Ga.
But, of course, specialists underline practical negativism and rejection of using daily electronic monitoring from the side of the employees. People like to be trusted and mostly pay back for this with good productivity and decent behavior at work. Many employees find measures of electronic control and surveillance to be the acts, which derogate from their human dignity and directly infringe the privacy rights of a person.
Such opposition received immediate support by legislative regulations. In a number of European countries, like Austria, there are some restrictions for using measures of electronic surveillance in the workplace. In order to establish any form of electronic control of employees, business organizations need to receive a special permission from the works council. Similar laws, establishing privacy protection regulations, were attempted to be adapted in our country, in particular, in California, but they were vetoed by the Governor at the early stages.
The researches underline that recently the sensitivity of the employees to electronic control and monitoring is decreasing, and now the personnel becomes more and more tolerant to the measures of electronic surveillance in the workplace. Especially after the events of Sept. 11, people started finding ES and monitoring to be very efficient for preventing some dangerous criminal or immoral intentions of the employees.