Striking a Balance with Employee Monitoring

Employee monitoring is controversial, but experts say litigation trumps privacy.

HOW MUCH SHOULD EMPLOYERS MONITOR THEIR EMPLOYEES' COMPUTER USE AND E-ACTIVITY?

Employee monitoring is a workplace hot potato, steeped in controversy, no matter the industry. In most places of business, it's pretty well known that the employee will have Internet access. The larger isssue is that because of new tools, there is a blurring of work and home time, and the lines between the activities blend.

Excessive monitoring or rigid rules can drive away productive employees, especially those generation X and Y, who expect some freedom in structuring their workdays. Although most employers have come to terms with this new reality, the issue is still confusing on both sides.

From the employer's perspectivefear of litigation trumps privacy, says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute (www.epolicyinstitute.com) and author of The epolicy Handbook.

In December 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended, allowing electronically stored information to be subject to discovery in federal courts.

If your company becomes embroiled in a lawsuit, you can take it to the bank that all of your company's e-mail can be subpoenaed,

says Flynn.

E-mail creates the equivalent of DNA evidence sitting on their computer system.

U.S. employers have the right to monitor employees' computer activity under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which has been interpreted to purport that employees should not expect any privacy on employer-owned computers.

The courts have been consistent in siding with employers

says Flynn.

Assume Big Brother is reading over your shoulder. If the company provides a cell phone, there is a good chance your texting is being monitored, too.

According to a 2007 survey conducted by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, 66 percent of employers monitor Internet connections and 65 percent use monitoring software to block inappropriate software, up 27 percent since 2001. Forty-three percent of companies monitor e-mail, and 45 percent track content and keystrokes.

Likewise, more and more companies are monitoring blogs, just like this one.They are worried about,

breaching company confidentiality rules, giving away trade secrets or secret recipes, uploading videos that would embarrass the company,

says Flynn.

We've seen thousands who have been fired for blogging on their personal time, for content on their personal and social networking sites and YouTube videos.

How do you strike a balance in your monitoring policy? Flynn recommends businesses apply the three E's of risk management:

• Establish a written policygoverning usage, contect and retention of business records. Spell out when employees can communicate with family, domestic helpers, physicians and schools, and what constitutes a reasonable amount of time for personal communication. Expect the policy to evolve with the workplace.
  
• Educate your workforce on e-mail and Internet risks, policies and procedures. The 2007 Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance Survey found that 58 percent of employers fired employees last year for inappropriate e-mail or Internet use, some of which were an intentional violation of policy, and some not.

  You can't expect your employees to cooperate unless they know about it,

  Flynn says.
  
• Enforce the policy with disciplinary action and technology tools, and detail the consequences. While zero tolerance may engender resentment among employees, warnings and escalating consequences will protect the firm and its employees.

If you or a member of your team has a question regarding employee monitoring, please e-mail us at firstplacerightchoice@1stplacemployer.com and a trusted advisor will respond withing 24 hours.

Workplace Politics – Lies, Lies, Lies

In honor of Super Tuesday the trusted advisors at First Place Employer Services voted to cover an unfortunate truth in the workplace. Lies. This time of year, America talks about the lies and the mudslinging over the dinner table or at the water cooler. What we do not publicly talk about often enough is how to handle and confront lying in the workplace. Your first instinct might be to ignore a lie about you, but as it swells to a crescendo, you might want to rethink your strategy. In the workplace, this is especially important, because a lie can rapidly contaminate the environment.

An article published on Courant.com takes a truthful look deeper into this issue. The article titled, "Don't Ignore Lies In The Workplace; Confront Them" suggests what to do with lies that sprout up like fast growing weeds in the workplace. Psychologist David Gruder offers containment tools below:

Escalating Steps to Confront Lying in the Workplace

• "Talk to that person privately, or with a neutral third party, where he doesn't have to put on a face for the public."


• "Identify key people in the system to tell that a lie is circulating. Ask these key influencers for advice about how to respond."


• "Organize an intervention if the previous methods prove ineffective."


• "Gather people who understand what the truth really is to collaborate on a procedure for publicly confronting the liar" — but only if you're desperate, because of the humiliation it causes. This could mean a note in a personnel file.

Read more of the article here: href="http://www.courant.com/business/hc-mildred0204.artfeb04,0,1785619.story">

The HR pros at First Place Employer Services tackle workplace challenges head on utilizing a team approach with our client as Captain. If you are an employer, we encourage you to take a look around and take note of behaviors which allow some people to be rewarded for behavior unrelated to doing a good job.

If you or someone you know may have questions regarding workplace behaviors affecting your place of business, please drop us an e-mail at:

firstplacerightchoice@1stplacemployer.com

and a trusted advisor will answer your inquiry within 24 hours.
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Is Sexy an Ingredient in Successful?

Did you ever wonder if your paycheck or your job stability depended on how attractive you were? Well published research suggests that in addition to our highly qualified skills and college degrees, looks are a highly compensated feature desired by employers across the land.

As a CFO or the owner of a successful business, does that also in turn mean that by hiring attractive, pretty people your business will be more successful than those competitors who hire their staff based on brains alone? You might wonder, but the research does not point out a profit equals prettiness factor.

Unattractive people earn less than average-looking people, who in turn make less than the good-looking, according to a study by economists Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle. The “plainness penalty” is about 9%, while the “beauty premium” is 5%, according to the report, which was published in the Journal of Labor Economics. So what exactly does this mean? Translation: An attractive worker makes 5% more per hour than an average-looking person, who in turn earns 9% more than their unattractive counterparts. In real dollars, this means that if an average-looking person makes $30,000; their beautiful colleagues would make $31,500, while the homeliest workers earn just $27,523. And interestingly, the impact was similar for both men and women.

Read more of the story here:
(http://www.theimproper.com/Template_Article.aspx?IssueId=3&ArticleId=1207)

Luckily, beauty is in the eye of the employer. What one recruiter considers plain, another HR executive finds beautiful. Will Corporate America be better off if they see that talent is a beautiful thing?

Good luck, stay legal, and look for the beauty within!

E-mail your questions concerning survival in the workplace to a trusted advisor and we will respond within 24 hours firstplacerightchoice@1stplacemployer.com
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