Personally, I think monitoring is a good thing, as long as its conducted in a morally sanctioned way (many examples in the article are not). But as everything else, it has it pros and cons.
If I would be the boss of a small company, I think, and hope, that I would have developed a personal relation with my employees, enabling me to trust them too all extent, and therefore not needing any surveillance. If we are talking about a multinational cooperation with hundreds, maybe thousands, of employees I would have to say that monitoring is a thing I might use. If so, I wouldn’t monitor my employees after work hours, during lunch or breaks, but to some extent during their work hours. I would see to it that no social networks were available during work hours, but I would never monitor my employees phones or e-mails, unless my company was dealing with classified information or if we were developing a new product, that needed to be secret until it’s disclosed.
I wouldn’t use monitoring as a tool to maximize the profits of the company, like making sure my employees weren’t slacking in their cars etc, you have to have some trust.
One other thing I find very interesting is the storage of our virtual behavior. Google are storing our searches in order to make their search engine more effective, so that the users find what they need faster. But I think this is scary. Google knows what we searched for at any given time on any given day. This enables them to direct their searches and most and foremost direct their advertising. For example, being a student, I get money at the end of each month. Therefore the searches for online stores will increase from my computer, during this period of time. That way, Google knows that at the end of each month they can sell advertising spots for stores, and putting them as an eye-catcher, when I use their search engine. I think this gives them too much influence over our online behavior.
I agree with you, loyalty is probably the best cure against slackers, and thereby against surveillance. But as you say, the bigger the company gets, the harder it gets to check on people. Maybe some sort of small teams within the company would do the trick. You mention Google, and as ranked as the best workplace in the world, I bet they have their own way to avoid ineffective employees: A damn high salary and benefits (such as taking care of your laundry and free lunch everyday) out of this world. I guess Google buy their employees loyalty.
SvaraRaderaGreat writing, quite a few words I didn't know.
//Erik Johansson
G'day
SvaraRaderaI like your way of viewing this dilemma and I totally agree! There is one thing one must make very clear, the difference between surveillance and snooping. Snooping is when you spy on a person without them knowing it or just dig around in their personal life. Surveillance is where the object, in this case a human being, is informed about the existence of all the monitoring and agrees to it.
So surveillance good and snooping bad!
thumbs up and pace
//Martin J
Hello Gustav!
SvaraRaderaAs a whole, I agree with your line of thought that monitering is good if done within some pre-defined set of rules. I also agree that there must be a relationship of trust among a boss and an employee. In order to run a bussiness smoothly, a boss has no other option than to trust his employees. I can not help agreeing with you on the thought that everything has got some pros and some cons with it but trusting your employee to the extent you have mentioned is the best strategy.
I think there are some minor linguistic errors in the text and they are;
"as long as *(its)* it is conducted in"
"it has *(it)* its pros and cons"
"If I *(would be)* had been or had I been the boss of a small company"
"I would see *(to it)* it to that no"
"*(One other)* another thing"
"this is *(scary)* scaring"
"they can sell advertising spots for stores, and *(putting)* put them as an eye-catcher"
Hi Gustav,
SvaraRaderaI think you have done a well written and interesting blog text and on the whole I agree with you.
The sad part in this technical development are that the trust in other people are gone. In a perfect world we would not need to make this kinds of actions. Somewhere we lost our work moral and people are using the system all the time. I think, sadly, that we need monitoring but as you say not for make profit. However I think it is important that they inform their employees that they are using this kind of technology.
Regards
Hanna