Employee monitoring

Employee monitoring refers to any method of tracking what an employee does while at work. This may include the use of video cameras, keystroke logging, email filters, or even just watching or listening to the employee. As a result of increased technology, this has become a very important issue in the workplace. Employers have many options at their disposal when it comes to monitoring their employees, but the effectiveness and legality of each technique varies depending on the situation.

Employee Monitoring Techniques

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See also main article: Employee monitoring software

E-mail Scanning

E-mail scanning is a process in which incoming and outgoing mail passes through E-mail filtering software to search for content which may violate the policies of the employer. Often E-mails which are flagged by the filtering software will be then reviewed by a human to verify the validity of the E-mail content. Employees often consider E-mail scanning to be an invasion of privacy, but in many situations, employment contracts are written to give the employer permission to use it without legal repercussions.

Data Entry, Phone Work, And Retail

Monitoring systems can automatically count every keystroke of data-entry and data-processing clerks. Similarly, workers who answer telephone calls all day are monitored in detail. The exact number and duration of each call, and the idle time between calls, can go into an automatic log for analysis.

Video Surveillance

One of the most blatant forms of employee monitoring is through the use of Video surveillance equipment. Video feeds of employee activities are fed back to a central location where they are either recorded or monitored live by another person. This form of monitoring is invasive and can rarely be justified as necessary under privacy laws.

Location Monitoring

For employees that do not work in a static location, supervisors may chose to track their location. Common examples of this are delivery and transportation industries. In some of these cases the employee monitoring is incidental as the location is tracked for other purposes, such as determining the amount of time before a parcel will be delivered, or which taxi is closest.

Legal Issues

In Canada, it is illegal to perform invasive monitoring, such as reading an employee's emails, unless it can be shown that it is a necessary precaution and there are no other alternatives Fact|date=July 2008.

The following uses of employee information are generally considered legal:
* Find needed business information when the employee is not available.
* Protect security of proprietary information and date.
* Prevent or investigate possible criminal activities by employees.
* Prevent personal use of employer facilities.
* Check for violations of company policy against sending offensive or pornographic email.
* Investigate complaints of harassment.
* Check for illegal software.

Security

In some cases, monitoring an employee's work leads to monitoring the employee's life in aspects that are not related to work. This leads to acquisition of information about the employee, compromising the security of the employee.