The Society for Human Resource Management, in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, has conducted a poll to gain some insight into the long-standing debate between employers and employees regarding what is considered private in the workplace – and what is not? For example, are e-mail messages private? What about desk drawers or telephone conversations?
The poll queried 2,200 human resource professionals and 10,000 job seekers. E-mails were sent out in three waves of equal size over a two-week period in August of 1999. Both human resource professionals and job seekers were presented with a list of activities that have privacy-related issues associated with them, and were asked if they agree or disagree with an employer’s right to conduct them. Activities ranged from monitoring employees’ use of office equipment to searching through areas like desks, lockers or offices.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
Learn More
The results of the SHRM survey show that human resource professionals – when compared to job seekers – were more likely to agree that employers have the right to participate in the privacy-related activities mentioned in the poll.
Both human resource respondents and job seekers agree that employers should have the right to conduct certain activities that are specific to business needs.
For example, nearly all of the human resource professionals and job seekers surveyed agreed that employers have the right to check references of new hires. In addition, more than nine out of 10 human resource professionals and job seekers think employers have the right to audit employee expense reports.
Human resource professionals and job seekers also tend to see eye-to-eye about employers monitoring Internet use by employees. Seventy-eight percent of human resource professionals and 62 percent of job seekers agree that employers have the right to monitor employees’ Web use. However, 30 percent of job seekers and 7 percent of human resource professionals disagree, saying employers should not have that right.
The vast majority of job seekers disagreed that employers should have the right to open employees’ mail (84 percent), and use video cameras to monitor employees’ activities (60 percent). Human resource professionals also tended to disagree with these practices by employers, but not as strongly.
Seven out of 10 human resource professionals agree that employers have the right to record telephone activity, compared with about half of job seekers. In addition, 65 percent of human resource professionals believe it is within the rights of employers to monitor e-mail use and 48 percent believe it is acceptable to conduct searches of employees’ desks, offices or lockers.
However, 51 percent of job seekers felt employers that monitor are stepping over the line, and 74 percent felt similarly about employer-conducted searches.
Misuse of Internet results in discipline, firings
Nearly two out of three companies nationwide have disciplined – and nearly one out of three have terminated – employees for Internet misuse in the workplace, according to a study by Websense, Inc. and the San Diego-based Center for Internet Studies.
The “Websense Survey on Internet Misuse in the Workplace” was conducted by the Saratoga Institute and co-authored by Dr. David Greenfield of the Center for Internet Studies. The survey was conducted among 224 human resource directors at companies throughout the country, ranging in size from six to 150,000 employees. It comes on the heels of recent large-scale terminations at Xerox and The New York Times.
“Misuse of the Internet at work should never get to the point of termination,” said John Carrington, chief executive officer and chairman of Websense. “Companies need to start managing their Internet traffic and enforcing the Internet usage policies they already have in place.
The Websense survey revealed that almost half of human resource professionals interviewed expressed “little to no concern” about employees’ misuse of the Internet, despite evidence that shows Internet misuse can result in productivity losses, bandwidth drains and an overall increase in company costs.
Among the findings of the survey are:
34.4 percent of companies are “not concerned” about Internet use in the workplace, yet 56.3 percent admit that employees in the company use the Internet inappropriately.
82.6 percent of companies have a written Internet use policy.
Internet management software (37.7 percent), managerial oversight (37.1 percent) and self-regulation (22.3 percent) are currently the most popular methods of managing Internet use.
Of those companies who use management software, most use it to block pornography (20.5 percent). Others use it to block hate groups (8.9 percent), gambling (6.3 percent), and chat rooms (4.5 percent).
“The Web is a very powerful technology, capable of altering our moods and distracting us from our time at work,” said Greenfield. “Anything that can alter our moods can be abused, and the Internet is no exception in the workplace.”
