Monitoring Employees on Networks: Unethical or Good Business?

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- Personal e-mails can clog the network:

In today’s technological world, no company could run its business without an availability of a network, so what if the network clogged because of an illegal action of personal e-mails usage, it is really a big problem.

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SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

To resolve such problems, they could do the following suggestions:

- Monitor e-mail and personal use of Internet

- Policy regarding Internet usage to protect against employee lawsuits.

- Explicit ground rules in easily understood language

- Includes who has what rights and under what circumstances

- Vague terminology cannot be applied fairly

- Allow specific times for personal e-mail and Internet access

- Implement a zero tolerance policy and modified usage policy

Or as our classmate “Hamed AL-Azri” suggested in the class, managers could mentain a specific room just for personal usage of internet and that room must be monitored and has access just for a specific websites and for a specific ours only.

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CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1) Should managers monitor employee e-mail and Internet usage? Why or why not?

Answer:

“Managers can monitor employee e-mail and Internet because a research found about 77 percent of workers with Facebook account use them during work hours. Moreover average employee wastes approximately 30 percent of the workday on-work-related Web browsing, while 90 percent of employee receive or send personal e-mail at work. This all refer that effect the company which is:” (1)

- It leads to time lost, which in turn leads to work lateness.

- It lead to productivity lost, in turn leads to revenue lost.

- It leads to serious business problem and interruptions of business performance.

- It leads to clogged network.

- So on.

2) Describe an effective e-mail and Web use policy for a company

Answer

- Effective e-mail and Web use policy is can lay out specific procedures and accountabilities, identifying which users and organizational units can share information, where information can be distributed , and who is responsible for updating and maintaining the information.

- The company can use software from Spector Soft Corporation that record all Web site employee visit, time spend at each site and all e-mail send.

(1)http://sustainabilitycasestudy.blogspot.com/2013/11/monitoring-employees-on-networks.html

- The company also can use e-mail monitoring software flags certain type of messages and keywords within messages for further investigation.

- Company use policy that includes explicit ground rules that state, by position or level, under what circumstance employee can use company facilities foe e-mail, blogging, or Web surfing.

3) Should managers inform employees that their Web behavior is being monitored? Or should mangers monitor secretly? Why or why not?

Answer:

From my point of view , The managers should inform the employees that their uses of the web is monitored. This is because:

- To avoid employees using their personal business

- Employees can concentrate during their work hours.

- Improve company productivity

- Let employees know exactly where the company stands.

- Monitoring might help pinpoint the user who was actually logged on rather than the one assumed to be the cause of the problem.

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CONCLUSION

The internet and E-mail are very important tools that are used a lot nowadays. Many people use them very much even in their working places. Many bad impacts caused by that usage so employers try to minimize that impact by a written policies and monitoring their employees on a network by a system.

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REFRENCES

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_monitoring

- Staff Monitoring Solutions: Internet Monitoring in the Workplace

- http://sustainabilitycasestudy.blogspot.com/2013/11/monitoring-employees-on-networks.html

- Susan M. Heathfield ,( https://www.thebalance.com/surfing-the-web-at-work-1919261 , November 07, 2016 )

- (http://www.staffmonitoring.com/P32/abuse.htm)

- Michele Schatz presentation on March 7, 2005