Monitoring Affects Motivation Essay, Research Paper
While employee monitoring by management is nothing new, electronic monitoring (EM), is a relatively new phenomenon. According to Vaught, EM can be described as the use of electronic instruments or devices such as radio, video, and computer systems to collect, store, analyze, and report individual or group actions or performance . EM has grown to be a worldwide feature of organizations. Firms use these systems to monitor employee s actions, and to make sure they are performing to their potential.
Motivation is a process that arouses and directs goal-directed behavior (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). Motivation is an attribute in the workplace that is dealt with everyday. Managers are constantly looking for ways to improve an employee s performance. One of the hardest parts of a manager s job is to find an approach to motivate his/her employees.
Our mission statement, as an organizational team, is to inform management of the implications that an electronic monitoring system has on employee work motivation. Certainly EM raises ethical dilemmas for managers, yet they must continually strive for improvements in productivity to compete in the marketplace (Vaught, 2000). The key to adopting an effective EM system, is the implementation process. If the system is implemented in a fair and equitable manner, then there should not be too many problems. If on the other hand, it is implemented poorly, it will cause many problems within the firm.
The wave of the new century is just evolving, and the importance of E-commerce is strengthening each day. Tying an issue of organizational behavior in with an issue of E-commerce will give us an understanding of the types of effects E-commerce can have on an organization.
Monitoring means consistently measuring performance and providing ongoing feedback to employees and work groups on their progress toward reaching their goals. Ongoing monitoring provides the opportunity to check how employees are doing and to identify and resolve any problems early (http://www.opm.gov/perform/monitor.htm). Electronic Monitoring (EM) has been around for many years to keep a watch over its employees. Every organization should have a type of policy to address EM; it should be in an employee handbook, or an employment application. Each employee should sign it to indicate that the employee understands and consents to the policy. Other ways of implementing the policy is to have a message appear each time an employee logs on to a company computer.
A couple of tips about employee monitoring are offered by the business owner s toolkit: monitoring should not extend into highly private areas in the workplace, such as restrooms and lounges; monitoring generally should be limited to the workplace. Only in the most unusual and rare circumstances should surveillance move beyond the workplace; and there should be a clear relationship between monitoring and a business-related reasoning (www.toolkit.cch.com/).
New technologies make it possible for employers to monitor many aspects of their employees’ jobs, especially on telephones, computer terminals and through electronic and voice mail. The main facet of EM is by reviewing an employee s computer usage. The websites that they log on to during work are monitored to an extreme. If you have a computer terminal at your job, it may be your employer’s window into your workspace. There are several types of computer monitoring: employers can use computer software that enables them to see what is on the screen or stored in the employees’ computer terminals and harddisks; people involved in intensive word-processing and data entry jobs may be subject to keystroke monitoring. This system tells the manager how many keystrokes per hour each employee is performing. It also may inform employees if they are above or below the standard number of keystrokes expected. Keystroke monitoring has been linked with health problems including stress disabilities and physical problems like carpal tunnel syndrome; and the technique allows employers to keep track of the amount of time an employee spends away from the computer or idle time at the terminal (http://www.privacyrights.org).
Another monitoring technique that many employers are now acquiring is called Little Brother. Like a number of other similar products, it can tell the boss where you’ve been on the Internet. “It’s very specific. It looks at who the users are and where the user goes at what time, says Jen Andersen of Kansmen Corporation, makers of Little Brother. “We can make very extensive reporting about every single issue. You go to Playboy, sports, weather, organizations — anything. It’s extremely specific.” He’s not kidding. Those red bars show where his co-workers are on the Web in real time. The software also generates reports, complete with adjectives describing how a worker is spending his Internet time at the office. “The boss or the employer — whomever’s in control of the network — can set the policy and can have reports generated on a certain individual, or they can monitor all the time,” adds Andersen (http://www.littlebrother.com/).
There are many legal issues dealing with EM. Already, employees have brought actions under Title VII claiming racial discrimination in their employment, with racial comments in the e-mails of fellow employees. Likewise, sexually explicit e-mail messages from frequent solicitations for dates with co-workers via voice mail and e-mail referred to by the courts as e-harassment , have been the basis for sexual harassment suits. Internet access may also cause problems. If employees view sexually explicit materials, electronic records may be evidence used by an unhappy employee suing a formal employer for tolerating sexual harassment. All monitoring activity must be conducted within state and federal laws, including for example, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. The ECPA covers almost all wire or electronic communication (www.bizjournals.com/). The only problem with this is that, if the employer owns all of the equipment, such as, telephones, computers, etc. The employer then has full rights to monitor each piece of equipment, and the person that is using it. Employees have lost numerous cases to the courts claiming invasion of privacy. Since the employer has full access to maintain the server, he/she is not breaching an invasion of privacy. Further as illustrated in several articles, even if an employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the employers interest in preventing inappropriate or unprofessional communications over its e-mail system outweighed any privacy interest that the employee may have had in its e-mail (Monitoring Security on the Internet). A possible solution to handle the invasion of privacy situation is to notify employees in advance that their activities may be monitored. Under any circumstances, the employer should acknowledge them. This is summed up well in the article Monitoring Communications on the Internet . Here it is stated that an employer cannot simply allow employees to communicate on an E-mail system unmonitored. Too many litigants will seek to hold the employer responsible for what is said and done. Employers should monitor, but do it wisely and consistently, and adopt a policy that works for them. They should also find a lawyer who can craft one, just for their business, rather than using one off the shelf . It is smart employee relations, and smart preventive law practice.
Just last week the New York Times fired 20 employees at a Virginia payroll-processing center for violating corporate policy be sending inappropriate and offensive e-mail, and the Navy reported that if disciplined more than 500 employees at a Pennsylvania supply depot for sending sexually explicit e-mail. Xerox fired 40 people in October for violating company computer policies and Boeing has fired a few on similar grounds too. Such cases hardly come as a surprise: 45 percent of major U.S. companies engage in electronic monitoring of communications and performance, according to a survey conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) (Your Boss may be monitoring your E-mail).
The above statement shows why organizations adopt EM systems. Monitoring can improve training and development efforts, increase productivity and service, and reduce costs. Properly designed and implemented, electronic monitoring also can provide benefits to workers. Monitoring can also prevent the theft of trade secrets and monitor the quality of employee work. Employees, who develop, use or transmit confidential information might use Internet access or e-mail to send trade secrets to competitors. Monitoring employees may discourage employees from breaking this law, and other rules of the company.
Here are some guidelines that an organization takes when adopting a monitoring system:
Solicit employee participation. Employees respond more favorably when they are allowed to provide input into the design of the monitoring system, because they feel greater ownership and control. For example, employees may be allowed to determine the frequency with which they receive monitoring-related feedback. Employees also may provide input concerning what areas to monitor. Monitor for developmental purposes. The most important determinant of a monitoring system’s success is the organization’s purpose for monitoring. Monitoring used for punitive purposes is generally accompanied by destructive, hostile feedback and discipline. The objective is to drive the pace of work and punish workers who fail to keep up. Used in this way, monitoring becomes the electronic whip that transforms the modern organization into an electronic sweatshop. Such monitoring will meet employee resistance and have dysfunctional consequences for the organization. Companies such as MCI, AT&T and GE have found that employees respond positively when a developmental approach to monitoring is used. Practice disclosure. Disclosure refers to whether employees are informed when they are being monitored and how the information will be used. Results of a survey by Macworld Magazine indicate that 69 percent of companies that conduct computer monitoring or searches of employee computers, voice mail, electronic mail, or networking communications do so without giving employees advance warning. For many workers, this type of silent or covert monitoring is akin to spying. As a result, it breeds an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion and damages employer-employee relations and diminishes worker morale. In contrast, disclosure may send a message that you intend to use monitoring in a positive developmental fashion (G. Stoney Alder).
Electronic Monitoring systems have become an essential to an organization. They play an important role in the everyday activities of the business. Monitoring systems receive a lot of negative feedback. When it comes down to it though, if you follow the company s policies and rules, an employee has nothing to worry about. It is only those employees that abuse company policy or try to bend the rules that get burned by the system. Though it is a never ending argument whether the systems violates the employees right, the employees will always play devils advocate against the system, fearing that it one day might catch them acted in an unethical manner. Whatever you take on the subject, Monitoring is a rapidly growing category that cannot be ignored. Sooner or later, its reach will extend worldwide.
The success of an organization is dependent upon the success of its employees. Successful organizations have realized that employees are their most important assets, providing them with a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The manager plays a key role in the development of their employees. Managers must be able to create an atmosphere that will encourage employees to work to the best of their ability to accomplish organizational goals. Since it is part of a manager s job to get their work done through others, managers need to understand what motivates their employees so that he or she can encourage them to meet these goals.
In our evolving global economy, managers must help their employees adjust to an ever-changing business climate. Work and the workforce are undergoing greater changes today than at any time since the beginning of the industrial revolution (Watts, ). Characteristics of today s business world such as the increased applications of technology, downsizing, mergers, a global workforce and the movement towards team-based organizations are challenging managers and employees. As the business world changes, managers must encourage employees to accept the new environment and grow with it. Work motivation will play a key role in encouraging this acceptance.
Work motivation is defined as the set of internal and external forces that initiate work-related behavior, and determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration (Ambrose and Kulik, 1999). The definition recognizes the influence of both internal and external factors that combine to determine what will motivate each individual. Managers need to be aware of the fact that material rewards are not the only thing that motivates workers. Work provides psychological meaning to many people. People who get satisfaction from their jobs often sustain high-quality performance even when they are disappointed with their compensation, job security, or working conditions (Watts, ). Managers are constantly looking for ways to improve an employee s performance because each employee has a unique personality and is motivated by different factors. It is highly unlikely that a single set of motivational approaches will be successful (Arnold and Krapels, 1996).
Since managers can not actually see work motivation or measure it, they must rely on established theories to guide them in measuring the observable manifestations of work motivation (Ambrose and Kulik, 1999). Theories attempt to explain behavior and provide insight into the factors that motivate people to perform. There are five methods of explaining behavior that underlie the evolution of modern theories of human motivation: needs, reinforcement, cognition, job characteristics, and feelings/emotions (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). These well-established theories have been researched extensively and continue to serve as a framework for modern motivation research.
One theory developed by Abraham Maslow is the hierarchy of needs (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). Five stages make up Maslow s hierarchy. The five stages, starting at the bottom of the hierarchy are physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. Maslow established that these needs must be fulfilled in sequence, starting with the physiological needs. The ability to satisfy the lower-order need enables a person to focus on the next higher need. The process culminates in the achievement of self-actualization. This desire for self-fulfillment drives an employee to perform to the best of their ability.
Reinforcement theory emphasizes the relationship between behavior and its consequences (Ambrose and Kulik, 1999). According to B.F. Skinner, behavior is not a result of hypothetical internal states such as instincts, drives or needs (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). In other words, people have the tendency to continue with behavior that resulted from a favorable condition and not from a behavior that resulted from an unfavorable condition.
Uncomfortable with the idea that behavior is shaped completely by environmental consequences, cognitive motivation theorists contend that behavior is a function of beliefs, expectations, values, and other mental cognitions (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). People s behavior is recognized with a multiplicity of resourceful choices.
The job characteristics approach is based on the idea that the task itself is the key to employee motivation (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). The underlying meaning suggests that in order to enhance motivation a job must be interesting and challenging. Inclusively a job needs to have variety, autonomy and decision authority. A strategic way of adding variety and challenge to boring and mundane jobs are job enrichment or job reengineering.
The most recent addition to the evolution of motivation theory is feelings/emotions. This theory is based on the idea that workers are whole people who pursue goals outside of becoming a high performer (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). Our feelings and emotions are a function of our work motivation toward a multitude of our interests and goals. We are prone to follow our intuitions rather than our basic workplace routines.
Motivation is composed of complex ideas. Managers are confronted with this complexity of alternative explanations. Not one single theory is appropriate in all situations. A contingency framework is the best approach to tackle each situation individually. They must draw from the fields of economics, psychology, and sociology to develop a thorough understanding of what might motivate an individual employee (Arnold and Krapels, 1996). In order for performance to increase, the employee needs to be motivated in some way that he/she receives satisfaction from their performance. This is one of the hardest parts of a manager s job and a business-related problem.
Up and until this point we have been skimming the surfaces of monitoring and motivation. Now it s time to recognize the impact that monitoring has on motivation and establish the implications that an electronic monitoring system has on employee work motivation.
There are a multiplicity of factors of how monitoring can affect motivation. We begin with the negative implications of monitoring. A number of issues have been raised with respect to the use of monitoring and the technological advancement used to determine whether or not the net effect is justified given their frequent detrimental effects. Although some authors argue that computerized monitoring may benefit employees through increased objectivity of performance appraisal and improved feedback, critics claim that computerized performance monitoring invades worker privacy, and creates a dehumanizing and unsatisfying work environment (Hawk, 1994).