SEEKING QUALITY THROUGH USER GOAL MONITORING

Seeking Quality Through User Goal Monitoring

Seeking Quality Through User Goal Monitoring

It is almost commonplace today that when newly hired, an employee is requested to sign an Electronic Monitoring policy supplied by their employer. It explains the new employer's intent as to email, phones, internet, and other on the job electronic aides and their ability to monitor how employee's use company property. As new hires, do we really know what that document means to our day-to-day working situations? Our internet habits, phone conversations or e-mail's are not always something we would want our employers to know about, yet based on current precedent in the courts, employees have no right to privacy when using company equipment. Most employers monitor electronic usage to maintain efficiency. Depending on your employer's stand on usage of electronic devices, employees may be putting their jobs in danger.

Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute in Columbus, Ohio, says the provisions of the act can be translated this way: "The computer system is the property of the employer and as such the employer has the right to monitor Internet activity and e-mail. Employees should have no reasonable expectation to privacy."1There are two well-known cases that have set precedent for electronic monitoring, Michael A Smyth vs. the Pillsbury Company2 and Bonita P. Bourke vs. Nissan Motor Corporation in the USA3. In the Nissan case, the plaintiffs, Bonnie Bourke and Rhonda Hall were hired as Information Systems Specialist to assist Infiniti car dealerships to resolve problems with the computer systems. Employees were aware that the company could randomly monitor email. During a training session, a co-worker of the plaintiffs was demonstrating the usage of email and randomly selected a message sent by Bourke to an employee of the dealership.

The email was of a personal and sexual nature. Bourke was reported to a supervisor, who then reviewed a number of emails for the entire workgroup. Bourke and Hall received written warnings for violating the company policy of the use of company computer systems for personal purposes.

Over the course of Bourke's employment with Nissan, she received periodic performance reviews, which indicated that she had deficits in the areas of decision-making, oral communication skills, and job knowledge. In October of 1990, Bourke was rated a needs improvement at her annual review, the second lowest of six ratings. When Hall received her interim review in May 1990, she received a borderline satisfactory rating, showing deficits in the amount of time she spent on personal business while at work, and told she needed to show greater initiative towards her work performance. During the Christmas shutdown, both employees filed grievances with the human resource department stating that the company had invaded their privacy by retrieving and monitoring their emails.

On January 2, 1991, Bourke was given a final warning concerning her job performance, and was told that if her work did not improve she would be terminated. Bourke resigned her position the next day, and Hall was ...