Privacy depends on business size (?)
Hey everyone. I was wondering today, while we were having our debate, if you would view the idea of privacy and monitoring employees the same way if the business was smaller. I understand that this is a business/law class and some of you would like to work for a large firm/business someday. I understand the protection that monitoring employees offers a large company. However, I hope to one day work in a somewhat smaller setting, where all the employees are together in one moderately sized office and "everybody knows your name." In that instance, would being a smaller business not require such lengths of monitoring? This idea kind of came from Prof. Prenkert's question to us about becoming autonomous when you go to work for someone else. In a smaller setting, I would think that the employer/employee relationship would be based on a somewhat more solid foundation and the mutual sense of trust would be more appreciated if there was a mutual understanding that each of you is a person with an outside life and that life may require some attention while in the work place. And when it comes to inappropriate behavior, the business is so small that everyone would probably know about it in about 5 minutes. Just a thought. :o) What do you all think?
posted by Kelley at
11:06 PM
3 Comments:
I agree with Jenny that in a small company that trust is a key issue. Usually the smaller companies can not pay as much as larger companies. Therefore if your trust in the employer you work for is not there. It is a much easier decision to move on from that job and find other employment opportunities.
I agree that in a small company, trust is more important and monitoring employees' use of the internet is not as necessary. I understand what Richelle is saying about becoming too comfortable with the people you work with to the point where may you think it's ok to do a lot of personal tasks at work. However, I think the point that Kelley is making is that some of us don't want to work for "corporate" type jobs, no matter how big or small. Personally, I am interested in non-profit work, where the company is small and likely does not have the money to be monitoring emails. In that case, I can't imaging managers wanting or needing to monitor their employees and I also can't see the employees wasting time that they are not exactly being overly compensated for. My point is, we have a tendency in class to focus on a type of corporate, big business type job that not everyone plans to encounter.
After reading all the comments, I fall somewhere closer to richelle's opinion. I have worked for very small, very tight-knit (sometimes suffocating!) summer camps. At one of them there were just 10 other counselors, our boss, and a few supporting roles. Usually everybody did know what was going on with everyone else, but usually it was everybody BUT your boss, the main representative of the company. He would know a lot, but somehow his title left him somewhat divided from the technical staff. And with small groups, and I imagine also companies, you get some weird loyalties going on. One guy (who I did and still do consider to be a friend) took to randomly disappearing during the day to call home to England. Of course, he used a calling card, and we would all cover his butt because that most definitely wasn't something we were "allowed" to do, but it's just an example of a situation where employers can be oblivious to something even in a very small setting. It's also a good example of how coworkers can act if they feel as loyal to each other as they do to their employer, which often happens when you spend lots of time with a small number of people. If my employer had maintained some sort of monitoring device, this situation would have been addressed and taken care of.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home