By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady
Spying on employees can take many forms, some of which are very intrusive. Yet, most employers do spy some, and so do we, says BLR’s founder and CEO Bob Brady.
A series of postings in Workforce Management began a few months ago when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Boeing Co., the giant aerospace manufacturer, was spying on one of its employees. The activities allegedly included following him to lunch and accessing his Gmail account.
Boeing “refused to discuss its surveillance policies with the Post-Intelligencer, except to say, ‘Issues that necessitate investigation in order to protect the company’s interests and those of its employees and other stakeholders are handled consistent with all applicable laws,’” according to Workforce Management.
Most readers commenting on the Workforce article expressed outrage that the employer would cross the line between on- and off-the-job activities.
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Some went further and argued that it is never right—even if it might be legal—to spy on or monitor employee activities, especially off the job. One writer cited the case of an employer whose IT staff was charged with monitoring e-mail. A staff member saw a reference to an employee’s health problem. It was disclosed, leading to a privacy lawsuit.
Counterbalancing these arguments, many HR professionals took a hard line, even to the extent of accessing the employee’s Gmail account. If he was using the Gmail account from work, on a company computer, it was fair game, they argued.
Good Hiring Practices
The majority, however, made it pretty clear that the HR profession is not signed up for surveillance, and that the way to avoid problems is to hire the right people. “If you do that, you won’t have to worry about policing them.”
Not surprisingly, I’m with the majority on this issue. Rarely is it is worth the time, effort, money, and risk to “spy.” If you are the least bit heavy handed, the cost in terms of morale can be severe, even if no illegalities are involved.
But We Spy
Yet, at BLR, we do some “spying,” as do most employers.
Most of our “spying” is “monitoring for quality assurance,” most often in customer service and sales. It is important for training and management purposes. We also, on very rare occasions, review specific employees’ computer files, if there is reasonable suspicion of a serious problem.
We also do preemployment drug testing. And I can conceive of situations in which we would follow an employee’s outside activities, if, say, he or she were involved in attacking the company in the press. (Fortunately, that has never happened!)
So, there it is. We spy on our employees, and while we are not apologetic about it, there are risks involved. It isn’t hard to imagine a case where personal information could be uncovered and inappropriately disclosed.
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Why Do We Do It?
Some things are easier to justify than others. For example, we have guidelines for sales and customer service staff, and we want to make sure that they are followed, both for compliance and training purposes. This is pretty standard.
Other situations are more gray—for example, company e-mail or Internet use. As a practical matter, we don’t even do random monitoring of such things. (The very rare occasions have been associated with “cause.”) Nevertheless, we do have a policy reserving the right to do so. Basically, if you are using company resources, we believe your expectations of privacy are diminished.
In another case, an employee was outraged that his employer had looked at his MySpace entries and seen comments critical of the company. Although those more familiar with social publishing etiquette may disagree, my feeling is that such items are “public,” with little reasonable expectation of privacy. This isn’t spying; it is more akin to reading the newspaper.
Guiding Principles
One of the first items in our company’s guiding principles is “we will behave in an ethical manner.” We try to hire only people who are ethical, and we deal with the occasional problem quickly. As the posters who commented on the Boeing article noted, hiring good people is the first step.
Notice
If you are going to “spy” on employees, you have to make sure employees receive notice. Also make sure that everyone has the professional training and expertise to understand the laws and practices involved. IT may do actual monitoring, but their role should be to assist HR in getting files, not doing an analysis of them.
On our subscription website, HR.BLR.com, there are numerous resources relating to the issue of surveillance and privacy. Check under the topics Electronic Monitoring and Privacy. (Note: Some of these are available to everyone; some are reserved to subscribers.)
That’s my e-pinion. I’d love to hear yours. E-mail me at rbrady@blr.com.