Unit 7: Workplace Privacy

Workplace Privacy

Being an employee is not so pleasant. Feeling we are being looked at, and monitored sometimes does not allow us work as well as we would if we were not. Therefore, I want to share something so monitoring cause stress and make one makes mistakes. Also You’ll see how a research demonstrates how monitoring in the workplace increases stress drastically.

Working under pressure produces stress in workers. Electronic monitoring exerts pressure to perform, which makes working under such conditions wearing on employee mental health.

How Does Monitoring Cause Worker Stress?

According to Congress's Office of Technology Assessment, "Service observation, when done without notice or warning, can contribute to a feeling of being spied upon" (13:5). When workers begin to feel that their employer does not trust them, their mental well-being is harmfully impacted.

Monitoring often occurs in already stressful work circumstances, and the combination of surveillance with other stressors can push workers beyond reasonable tolerance levels. According to the Worklife Report,

"Not only does electronic monitoring have the "potential" to adversely influence working conditions which have been shown to cause stress, it may actually create these adverse working conditions, such as paced work, lack of involvement, reduced task variety and clarity, reduced peer social support, reduced supervisory support, fear of job loss, routinized work activities and lack of control over tasks." 

Monitoring presents an "assault on personal dignity", and decreases worker autonomy by requiring regimented compliance to monitored standards. These factors make working under surveillance a subtle source of worry for workers.

Research Shows Monitoring Increases Stress

The OTA found that "There is reason to believe that electronically monitoring the quantity or speed of work contributes to stress and stress-related illness" (13) The exact impacts of monitoring on stress levels are uncertain because little research has been done on "separating the effects of monitoring from job design, equipment design, lighting, machine pacing, and other potentially stressful aspects of computer-based office work." 

A study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health compared a group of heavily monitored clerical workers with a control group which was not monitored and found that the former group experienced a greater degree of stress than the later.

Circumstantial Evidence Shows Monitoring Increases Stress

At AT&T, where computer monitoring is used extensively, "at least 25% of the workforce is involved in job counseling for work-related emotional disorders."

According to Shoshana Zuboff, a Harvard University professor, writing in the Harvard Business Review, turnover climbed to almost 100 percent after "a large retail chain" implemented automated monitoring of its collections staff." 

9to5 reported on the experience of a telephone service worker who suffered a nervous breakdown which she blamed on "bathroom break harassment". In this cases, a worker's stress became unbearable when the worker was not able to take needed bathroom breaks because she feared termination due to noncompliance with strict regulations on the allotment of worker time:

"At United Airlines, flight reservationists are permitted 12 minutes for bathroom breaks during a 7.5 hour period. Any amount over that is grounds for a disciplinary warning. One worker spent 13 minutes over her allotted time and was threatened with firing. 'She [the supervisor], told me that while I was in the bathroom my co-workers were taking extra calls to make up for my 'abusive' work habits.' "

When Gary Cwitco of Communications Workers of Canada surveyed 700 Bell Canada operators he found that two-thirds regarded their monitored jobs as very stressful or moderately stressful. He was told by 70% of the workers that the "perceived preference for speed over quality of service created psychological distress.