BUSINESS DRIVEN DEBATE Monitoring Employees Every organization has the right to monitor its employees. Organizations usually inform their employees when workplace monitoring is occurring, especially regarding organizational assets such as networks, email, and Internet access. Employees traditionally offer their consent to be monitored and should not have any expectations of privacy when using organizational assets. Do you agree or disagree that organizations have an obligation to notify employees about the extent of workplace monitoring, such as how long employees are using the Internet and which websites they are visiting? Do you agree or disagree that organizations have the right to read all employees' email sent or received on an organizational computer, including personal Gmail accounts? Many employees use their company's high-speed Internet access to shop, browse, and surf the web. Most managers do not want their employees conducting personal business during working hours, and they implement a Big Brother approach to employee monitoring. Many management gurus advocate that organizations whose corporate cultures are based on trust are more successful than those whose corporate cultures are based on mistrust. Before an organization implements monitoring technology, it should ask itself, "What does this say about how we feel about our employees?" If the organization really does not trust its employees, then perhaps it should find new ones. If an organization does trust its employees, then it might want to treat them accordingly. An organization that follows its employees' every keystroke might be unwittingly undermining the relationships with its employees, and it might find the effects of employee monitoring are often worse than lost productivity from employee web surfing. Page 152