Lack of reporting requirements has employers snooping
Posted on January 16th, 2012 Read time: 1 minutes
One of a manager's responsibilities is to ensure that his or her employees are always on task. Surveillance has been used in the past to monitor activity, such as closed-circuit cameras on cash registers, employee email monitoring or website banning and GPS technology in company cars, the Tennessean reports.
However, advances in technology have made tracking employees' behavior far more invasive than ever before – and with limited legislation on its legality, some fear that it's going too far.
For example, if an HR outsourcing services firm provides a company with a temporary worker, a manager will likely be eager to ensure that the employee remains on task and is working ardently.
In order to monitor productivity, managers can now turn employee smartphones into mobile time clocks or use advanced positioning systems to pinpoint a worker's' location down to specific rooms in an office.
The law hasn't been fully developed on the issue of how far employers can go," Elizabeth A. Alexander, partner at New York-based Lieff Cabraser Heimann, told the news source.
Dark Reading notes that it's best to have a monitoring and privacy policy in place that includes how data is collected and what tactics a worker may be subjected to, in order to avoid legal action.
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Posted on January 16th, 2012 Read time: 1 minutes
One of a manager's responsibilities is to ensure that his or her employees are always on task. Surveillance has been used in the past to monitor activity, such as closed-circuit cameras on cash registers, employee email monitoring or website banning and GPS technology in company cars, the Tennessean reports.
However, advances in technology have made tracking employees' behavior far more invasive than ever before – and with limited legislation on its legality, some fear that it's going too far.
For example, if an HR outsourcing services firm provides a company with a temporary worker, a manager will likely be eager to ensure that the employee remains on task and is working ardently.
In order to monitor productivity, managers can now turn employee smartphones into mobile time clocks or use advanced positioning systems to pinpoint a worker's' location down to specific rooms in an office.
The law hasn't been fully developed on the issue of how far employers can go," Elizabeth A. Alexander, partner at New York-based Lieff Cabraser Heimann, told the news source.
Dark Reading notes that it's best to have a monitoring and privacy policy in place that includes how data is collected and what tactics a worker may be subjected to, in order to avoid legal action.
