Employee monitoring refers to any method of tracking what an employee does while at work. This may include the use of video cameras, keystroke logging, email filters, or even just watching or listening to the employee. As a result of increased technology, this has become a very important issue in the workplace. Employers have many options at their disposal when it comes to monitoring their employees, but the effectiveness and legality of each technique varies depending on the situation.
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See also main article: Employee monitoring software
E-mail scanning is a process in which incoming and outgoing mail passes through E-mail filtering software to search for content which may violate the policies of the employer. Often E-mails which are flagged by the filtering software will be then reviewed by a human to verify the validity of the E-mail content. Employees often consider E-mail scanning to be an invasion of privacy, but in many situations, employment contracts are written to give the employer permission to use it without legal repercussions.
Monitoring systems can automatically count every keystroke of data-entry and data-processing clerks. Similarly, workers who answer telephone calls all day are monitored in detail. The exact number and duration of each call, and the idle time between calls, can go into an automatic log for analysis.
One of the most effective forms of employee monitoring is through the use of Video surveillance equipment. Video feeds of employee activities are fed back to a central location where they are either recorded or monitored live by another person.
For employees that do not work in a static location, supervisors may chose to track their location. Common examples of this are delivery and transportation industries. In some of these cases the employee monitoring is incidental as the location is tracked for other purposes, such as determining the amount of time before a parcel will be delivered, or which taxi is closest.
Employee surveillance may lead to an executive's decision on whether to promote or demote and employee or in some cases even fire them.
Different techniques can be used, e.g. employees' cell phone or Mobile phone tracking.
In Canada, it is illegal to perform invasive monitoring, such as reading an employee's emails, unless it can be shown that it is a necessary precaution and there are no other alternatives .
The following uses of employee information are generally considered legal:
In some cases, monitoring an employee's work leads to monitoring the employee's life in aspects that are not related to work. This leads to acquisition of information about the employee, compromising the security of the employee.