Assignment

If you think your email or phone conversations at work are private, think again! Companies have a right to know what their employees are doing while on the job. From e-mail monitoring and website blocking to phone tapping and GPS tracking, employers increasingly are combining technology with policy to manage productivity and minimize litigation and security risks.

"A survey conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) revealed that more than half of the responding companies monitor employee email, and one quarter of them had fired an employee for misusing email (Guerin, 2012, NOLO Law for All)" Federal law has clearly stated that the computer systems, including the networks, belong to the company. So, you can expect that anything you do on your computer is looked at and monitored. Did you know that businesses are also monitoring social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace?

As an industry professional manager, you must make sure you stay up to date with federal and state laws regarding employee monitoring, make sure your company is in compliance with these laws, and you must make sure your company's data, servers, intranet & proprietary information, etc. are protected.

Before you begin participating in this discussion, use the ECPI Online Library or the Internet to research one case on the topic of employee monitoring. Hint: You may use www.findlaw.com (Links to an external site.) to assist you in locating cases.

Discussion Question

Discuss the following points in your initial post:

•In your opinion, should companies monitor employees? Explain your position.
•Is there some point where monitoring becomes intrusive or invades our right to privacy? Explain your position.
•Briefly summarize the case that you selected.
•Discuss how the outcome of the case(s) you researched supports your position on the first two points.

Note: Please be sure to cite your sources in APA format. Wikipedia is not an acceptable source