Employee Surveillance on Different Types of Employee in Organization

1. INTRODUCTION

From many decades, the employee surveillance has been rising steadily (Aiello & Svec, 1993; Aiello, 1993; Botan & Vorvoreanu, 2000; Botan, 1996) & its occurrence is increasing. According to the study of AMA in 2000, 78.4% of companies had occupied in some part of the employee surveillance over the past year. This number increased from 67% in the earlier. This increase had happened due to the advancement of technology. In earlier times, the surveillance was limited to the information that a manager could observe and record the data of subordinate. In the age of computer, employee observation can be immediate & regular. Almost all the works have possibility to the subject of some degree of employee surveillance but a few are a lot further vulnerable to the action. This can be from office worker whose manager reads his email messages to the cloth stockpile cashier whose scanner with bar code reports the rate at which one is working.

The research design will be descriptive in nature. The method of data collection will be mainly based on primary data from employees working in Noida city of Uttar Pradesh. However, an effort is made to collect primary data by taking information from various journals. Total number of sample size is 50 out of which 47 respondent‘s data is collected for analysis purposes. SPSS is a software package tool used for data analysis and statistical tools are Skewness, Kurtosis. Graphical presentation is done with the help of Bar charts.

In the different studies in 1980‘s (US Congress, 1987), the jobs those are susceptible of being surveillance includes data processing, word processing, and customer service telephone operators. These types of tasks are easy to surveillance because they are all connected with computers & they all generate outcomes which are measured quantitatively. E.g. it is easy for a manager in a phone bank to know the number of calls that all workers answer and to rank the performance of each worker based on these numbers. These studies suggest that the employee surveillance affects men and women in different manner. Most of the jobs where employee surveillance is done are in clerical field and lower level of professional fields like computer programming. In these types of job, the women have greater representation than men. So women are more prone to employee surveillance than men due to higher representation. There has been no accurate documentation of the extent of these differences but the extent of employee surveillance of women ranges from 75% to 85% (Botan 1996). This has happened due to the advances in the technology.

Employee surveillance can be of many forms. According to AMA study (2000) almost 50% monitored employee phone calls, either by

mail messages of the employees. A large percentage of employers monitored employee‘s computers either by recording computer use like time logged on, number of key strokes, time between entries etc. (19.4%), by storing and reviewing employees‘ computer files (30.8%), or by monitoring internet connections (54.1%). 15% employers says that they have videotaped employee job performance, and 35.3% videotaped for security purposes. There are other types of employee surveillance apart from above said forms. Sayre (1996) says that there is also a inherited & HIV checking in the organization with computer courses to see about what is present on the employee‘s computer monitor at every specified instance (Gajilan & Tanaka, 1997), finding out employees‘ credit rating (Quinn, 1997). Genetic testing many not be called as employee observation however there must be reason of apprehension since of the panoptic belongings (Vorvoreanu & Botan, 2000) by intensifying the hold that organizations control over their member of staffs. Controlling is the one reason that manager use employee surveillance.

There are lots of reasons suggested for the employee surveillance predominance. One of the reasons is that the possibility exists. The employee surveillance is made possible because of the advancement of technology it is easy to use and relatively inexpensive to install (Hardin, 1999; Hartman, 1998; Howard, 1998; Palmer, 1998), so who want to do employee surveillance can do it further simply than forever earlier. There are many reasons for instituting employee observation, As per AMA 2000, the main four reasons are output appraisals, assurance lawful fulfillment, lawful accountability, & expenditure management. Other reasons are fortification of trade data, protection, & security (Howard, 1998; Richard, 1999; Daugherty, 1999). The growth and development of new employee surveillance technology and practices has increased the potential for negative effects on the people subjected to it. If the negative effects of employee surveillance spread at the same rate as the practice itself, it is important that the organization be aware and understands them properly.

According to Aiello (1993) the effect of the employee surveillance have made an subject of anxiety in the admired concern who has used in the many articles like ‗Big brother at work‘, ‗Bosses working further than looking at workers‘ shoulders‘, and ‗Boss never blinks‘. Many of the editorials take a provocative advancement to the matter and many others provide influence to anxiety above employee supervision 1999; Smith & Williams-Harold, 1999). These articles show the overall dissatisfaction with the lack of privacy rights in the organization and reflect a negative attitude towards employee surveillance. Many of the literature show the increasing quantity of cases of organizations being gone to court for use of employee surveillance (Balitis, 1998; Kennedy & Alderman, 1996). Due to this there is an increased legal risk by using electronic device for employee surveillance. But the effect of employee surveillance is not restricted to the legal risk. Due to the employee surveillance, there is a concern with employee relations and employee morale being negatively affected (Balitis, 1998; Fitting, 1995). Due to the poor employee relations and low morale, there is a influence on the corporate bottom line which might defeat one of the primary goals of the employee surveillance i.e. productivity increase. Many of the articles illustrate an unfavorable consequence of employee supervision on changeable directly linked to efficiency like job satisfaction, turnover, non-attendance (Kidwell & Bennett, 1994; Chalykoff & Kochan, 1989; Mishra & Crampton, 1998) and productivity (Ottensmeyer, 1991; Heroux, 1991). A study carried out by Botan (1996) analyzed human resources who well thought-out about them to be heavily surveillance with those who are less surveillance and have found negative or panoptic effects. Even there is a suggestion for management to consider the negative stress related and healthiness effects sourced by employee surveillance (Posch, 1993). Lastly there is growing apprehension through moral thoughts of solitude of an employee, equality & admiration for employee (Mishra & Crampton, 1998; Hartman, 1998; Ottensmeyer & Heroux, 1991).

Many of the studies have been carried out in employee surveillance. Chalykoff & Kochan (1989) have focussed on the effects of ancestor variables on satisfaction with the electronic surveillance system. Aiello & Svec (1993), Griffith & Nebeker (1993) focussed on job performance as affected by the employee surveillance. Aiello & Svec (1993) and Griffith tried to explain the effect of computer monitoring on job performance using social facilitation framework (Zajonc, 1965). Nebekar & Tatum‘s (1993) study focused on the goal setting, incentives and office automation. Grant et al. (1988) studied about employee perceptions affected by employee surveillance. Botan & Vorvoreanu (2000) inquired about whether computer monitoring leads to perceptions that work quantity is more important than quality in the customer service sector. Botan & McCreadie in a work concentrating on the effect of the insight of getting beneath the employee supervision on solitude, ambiguity, self-esteem and workplace communication.

A model developed by Chalykoff & Kochan (1989) for investigating the effect of surveillance on employee level job contentment & return tendency. They conducted 91 interviews with employees, supervisors, and managers in the USA internal Revenue Department. The interview suggested that computer monitoring is a main activity in the activity and employees recognize the need of monitoring. Other conclusion is that the employee attitude towards surveillance depends on the characteristics of the performance monitoring feedback process. It is also found that employee surveillance has potential for control or feedback and the difference lays in the way the system is putting to use. On the source of knowledge, Chalykoff & Kochan (1989) developed a conceptual model that describes the influence of satisfaction and the monitoring system on job satisfaction and turnover tendency. There are three variables in the first stage of model that determine satisfaction with the employee surveillance by computer monitoring system. The variables are related to feedback, performance appraisal and include immediacy, frequency, feedback sign, criteria rating clarity and other factors of the employee with worker relationship. The variable in the next set is attitude regarding the suitability of employee surveillance like recognizing an attack of solitude or considering supervision as a essential instrument. The third group has additional factors that are likely to influence turnover such as job stress, employment alternatives and pay grades. Kidwell & Bennett (1994) developed Chalykoff & Kochan‘s (1989) study and introduce a new variable in the model. They said that employees‘ affective reaction to employee surveillance system is mediated by perceptions of procedural fairness. The professed routine equality is the professed equality of the technique applied to identify outcomes like raises and promotions. This proposition is suitable since employee surveillance is applied for analyzing work output & finalizing results. The researcher used survey models to measure the same variables and suggested that worker awareness of routine equality is an significant precursor of thought replies to the use of electronic equipments to observe employee performance. They suggested employees‘ opinion about the fairness of the evaluation system are influenced by factors like consistency of the system across individuals and in time, accuracy of information obtained, potential bias of the system, compatibility of system with employee ethical values, flexibility of system on corrective mistakes. Two studies carried out by Aiello & Syec, 1993; Griffith, 1993 focused on the effect on the employee surveillance on job performance. Both used social facilitation framework to explain the effect of employee surveillance on job performance an easy & difficult tasks. Societal making possible clarifies the difference based on whether individual work done or in the occurrence of one more individual. The basic study of social facilitation is that another person‘s presence increases probability that an individual will respond to a task with the individual‘s dominant response. This is correct in the matter of easy jobs & wrong in the matter of difficult. It means that in the matter of simple task, performance increases and in the matter of difficult one, performance decreases (Zajonc, 1965, cited in Griffith, 1993). Griffith (1993) had used controlled experimental setting to evaluate the result of employee surveillance with those of in person supervision, on the performance of simple task. Although job performance of the computer monitored was more than of performance at in person supervision. This in turn had exceeded the performance of those who worked alone, the results were not significant. For complex tasks, Aiello & Syec (1993) found a social facilitation effect. In this employee surveillance was established to be same as the presence of a supervisor and in difficult tasks, there was negatively affected performance. The result says that if a job involves performing difficult tasks, it is more efficient to have employee surveillance. Neber & Tatum (1993) conducted two experiments to investigate the effect of employee surveillance under different conditions of sets & compensations, on productivity, work quality, satisfaction, and stress.

Higgins, Grant & Irving (1988) had a different approach to employee surveillance and they focused on employee perceptions. The employee perception changes due to the nature of information it collects from employee surveillance. It leads to a insight with quantity is more important than quality. Grant et al. (1988) study is based on model that emphasizes the role of perceived employer expectations along with other variables like perceived job characteristics, personal characteristics, or motivation to perform any job. The perception of employer is given due importance because employee tend to direct effects at the task stressed or rewarded by the employer. With employee surveillance the employer‘s message regarding expectations is not clear because such electronic system collects information on quantitative aspect of the work. So, employee

employee surveillance perceived that work quantity was more important than quality. Workers were expected to handle a greater number of claims rather than provide quality service to customers (Grant, 1988). As compared to non-monitored workers, the workers who were monitored had a decline in excellence of work & a propensity to let alone dealt with additional complication, time consuming claims. Some of the employees bypass the employee surveillance system.

Botan (1996) did the study about the electronic panopticon to explain the relationship an employee creates at work place. The inhabitants of electronic panopticon are forever noticeable & theme to surveillance look of a right which is forever away of view (Foucault, 1977). They are incapable to identify once they are being seen & when not observed. The work place and panopticon have common characteristics, the forthcoming segregation of inhabitants. At the work place where there is employee surveillance, there will be isolation and segregation might not be substantial in environment. Employees sitting with each other are focusing on their work and working on their own work that is independently on time & scrutinized. They are isolated as the prisoner of the panopticon. Even if they include the potential to communicate with other employee, they cannot risk engaging in a type of behavior that is not a part of their job. The contrast between visible and invisible creates extraordinary type of power association in which workers are susceptible & they have no choice but to act as if they were being observed all the time. Botan (1996) had used Social Power Theory and suggested that when information technology is used as a device for enforcing a type of power relationship the consequences are not as intended. Botan used perception as an autonomous value which could expect panoptic effects like compact intellect of solitude, augmented ambiguity, & compact office communiqué. There are number of unlimited negative effects but all were not documented because of lack of evidence that employee surveillance has negative effects that might outweigh its benefits.

Stress and privacy invasion are not the only effects of employee surveillance. There are other consequences expressed through employee behaviour. This includes decreased work quality (Grant et al. 1988), and productivity (Ottensmeyer & Heroux, 1991). According to Botan (1996) and in solitude. The next is outer or behavioural which is common and important and are vulnerable to misapprehension. It can cost a lot of money. The two theories are as follows:

Foucault (1977) attempted to normalize and control over our lives. Electronic surveillance is seen as a structure of discipline and resistance to it is called as antidiscipline (De Certeau 1984). It comprised of multitude of micro practices that subverts the functioning of the dominant system. That performances be capable of take several types like computer or further kinds of damage (Gottfried Fasenfest, 1984; LaNuez & Jermier, 1994; Gottfried, 1994), Humour (Collinson, 1988), and narratives (Silbey & Ewick, 1995). La Nuez & Jermier (1994) talks about sabotage as a type of resistance in the work place. They gave theoretical damage as a antidiscipline as it is seen as deliberate act or not in act which destroy, damage, or disrupt working environment which includes company‘s possessions, manufactured goods, procedures or the reputation. There are two major motive behind sabotage i.e. diminished control and negative effect. Sabotage is more common when job is regular, dull, boring, and/or actually dangerous. The main reason behind the sabotage was the electronic control system. Diminished employee control is a shortest outcome of constant employee supervision whereas unenthusiastic outcome is shown as a outcome of employee surveillance (Vorvoreanu & Botan, 2000). Many of the tasks that lead to surveillance are routine and monotonous (i.e. information work, entering, storing, processing & maintaining information), so the conditions on which sabotage acts seems to occur are also likely present when there is employee surveillance. Employee behaviour that opposes organizational goals is called as negative. But they are not abnormal as far as literature is concerned. There is a tight link between power and resistance because they are productive to one another (Foucault, 1988). The exercise of power shows the existence of certain degree of free on the side of the party toward which power is targeted. There is also a degree of coercion, since total agreement makes exercise of power unnecessary. So target has a degree of free (different) that can be mobilized as resistance. Resistance itself is a power but acting on the different direction (opposite). Knights & Vurduebakis (1994) explains that why the power is considered and consistent with one another in producing their effects and why the tensions, contradictions, or non-correspondences within power relations be excluded. Further Coombs, subjectivist extremes.

In Equity Theory (Adams, 1965) the participants in a social exchange like employee-employer relationship invests inputs and gets outputs. There is always the exchange be perceived as unfair, if the person involved considers that an other‘s ratio of inputs to output is more favourable than his own. The ‗other‘ can be the other party to the exchange, or a similar person involved in a similar exchange with the same third party. If the other is in an exchange relationship with them (‗Person‘) then person‘s input represent other‘s output and vice versa. Individual can be consideration of as a worker & ‗other‘ as management. Apparent unfairness in a societal switch makes psychosomatic nervousness that performs as drive (Adams, 1965). Individual is provoked to decrease nervousness by dropping unfairness. This can happen only by controlling inputs. By changing inputs, there can be balanced input-output ratio. The person and ‗other‘ can be in either a direct or indirect exchange relationship. A direct relationship is made when person provides inputs such as labour, commitment, loyalty to obtain output like pay, prestige or reward. An indirect exchange exists when both person and ‗other‘ are in a relationship with third party such as when person sees others who make the same presumed contributions receiving more outputs than him whether in the shape of more pay, a bigger office, or personal complements from supervisors. Due to employee surveillance there can be unbalance between straight & no direct interactions. Due to the additional authority & power administrators contain more work forces while surveillance is instituted. E.g. employees are expected to recognize that employee surveillance changes the exchange relationship in the favour of management. So, equity theory suggests that employee might feel motivated to reduce inputs or to increase the output. Using additional labour period seeing amusement & porn websites going on the internet are the instances of such one-sided re-controlling of the affiliation. Or an employee who believes that they do the same amount and quality of work like others, but is surveillance while other is not would feel that other is getting better output than him and is psychologically rebalance the relationship. This is possibly to find out a way to ‗beat‘ the employee surveillance. Other do not always have to be different person.

About the electronic observing of an employee‘s work related activities done occasionally rather than on a continuous basis, maximum respondents strongly agree or agree (64%). 59.5% respondents strongly agree or agree that workforce must be shown note (like twinkling beam on a phone) every is principled. 78.7% respondents strongly agree or agree that giving employee‘s on paper notice that they would be checked by machine for a while in the coming period is sufficient caution. 53.2% respondents strongly agree or agree that the data set, in writing, by a senior from an worker‘s computer for afterward appraisal is right. 57.5% respondents strongly agree or agree that the instantaneous checking, in writing, by a senior of an worker‘s desktop screen is right. 31.9% respondents strongly agree or agree that the undisclosed concurrent monitoring by a senior of an worker‘s mail is right. 61.7% respondents strongly agree or agree that it is ethical for a superior to listen-in, with notice, on an employee‘s business related telephone calls. 53.2% respondents strongly agree or agree that the checking, in writing, at afterward instance by a senior of a worker‘s mail is right. 42.6% respondents strongly agree or agree that the undisclosed data through the worker‘s desktop at a afterward instance for appraisal by a senior is right. 46.8% respondents strongly agree or agree that it is ethical for a superior to secretly listen-in on an employee‘s business related telephone calls. 57.4% respondents strongly agree or agree that the checking, in writing, at a later time period by a senior of a worker‘s desktop screen is right. 44.7% respondents strongly agree or agree that it is right for a senior to clandestinely trace a worker‘s work associated phone calls for later review. 55.3% respondents strongly agree or agree that the undisclosed concurrent checking by a senior of a worker‘s desktop screen is right. 57.4% respondents strongly agree or agree that the concurrent checking, in writing, by a senior of a worker‘s mail is right. 61.7% respondents strongly agree or agree that it is right for a senior to track, with notice; an employee‘s business related telephone calls for later review. 66% respondents strongly agree or agree that the secret monitoring at a afterward time by a senior of an worker‘s desktop screen is ethical. 34% respondents strongly agree or agree that the secret monitoring at a later time period by a superior of an employee‘s emails is ethical.

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Table 18. The undisclosed checking at a later on time by a senior of an worker’s mail is right

Figure 18. Secret monitoring at later period of employees email is ethical

Associate Professor, Mangalmay Institute of Management & Technology, Greater Noida