With the ongoing improvements in IT, the chance of being monitored at work is greater than you might think. Employers are keeping a close eye on their workers and they say they have a very good reason for doing so.
Companies argue that they have to go to great lengths to keep tabs on employees for fear of sensitive information leaks or insider trading. Confidential data might end up in someone’s mail to a friend or worse to the competition. Another reason for surveillance is protection against lawsuits. Companies have had employee e-mails subpoenaed because of workplace lawsuits, usually involving harassment or discrimination. Finally, one of the predominant problems in all companies is time wasting. Employees themselves admit that they constantly surf non-work-related sites during working hours, forcing employers to monitor website connections.
Spending hours a day wasting time online is called cyber-slacking. For bosses, cyber-slacking is becoming a pervasive and perplexing problem. Employees, instead of focusing on work, prefer to cyber-shop, plan vacations, send personal emails, or even play games. SurfWatch Software estimated that nearly one third of American workers' time on the internet is spent cheating the boss out of real work. I wonder what the statistics would say about Polish employees. Employers say they have no choice but to resort to spying activities.
So when you go to work tomorrow think twice before you idle away by clicking the mouse. Somebody might be looking over your shoulder.
