While it isn't exactly "big brother," a "big employer" is monitoring employees in offices around the country, according to Workforce Week, an e-newsletter published by Workforce Management.

The article reports that bosses are working hard to stay on top of what their employees talk about on the phone, read online and write in e-mails. And they aren't always happy with what they find. In fact, "nearly half of U.S. employers have fired employees for misusing corporate e-mail or Internet access," according to the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, as reported by Workforce Week.

The article also highlights other statistics on employee privacy, taken from the AMA and ePolicy firms' annual electronic monitoring and surveillance survey:
• 40 percent of firms employ an individual who is responsible for "manually" reading and reviewing employee e-mail;
• 1 in 4 organizations "capture and review computer files," and 12 percent inspect blogs to see what's being published about their employers; and,
• 45 percent of companies listen to employees' phone conversations — 16 percent actually record those conversations.

Is it necessary to monitor what employees do at work? If you have an opinion on this question, don't forget to take this week's SAF e-poll.

--Cassandra P. Foster
cfoster@safnow.org

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