10 Things Employers Need to Know About Workplace Privacy Laws

In today’s fast-paced business world, a lot of job-related duties can be done virtually, or either in a brick and mortar office. Employees can use their Smartphones, social media accounts, and even personal Email to do what they need to do to get their work deliverables done on time. With this new fast becoming the norm in the workplace, employees feel that they have unlimited freedom when they use work-issued equipment, hardware, and software.

However, this is far from the truth. You, the employer has certain freedoms as well to monitor your employees, and to make sure that they are not stepping out of bounds to the rules that you have set forth. This article reviews what you need to be aware of concerning the privacy laws as it relates to the workplace.

1. Computer and Workstation Monitoring:

   Generally, you the employer can pretty much monitor what your employees are doing on work-related computers, wireless devices, and even Smartphones. Since technically your business or corporation owns all of this, you are free to deploy any kind of monitoring tool that you feel is appropriate. For example:

• You can view what is on the desktop, and what is stored on the hard drives.
• You can keep track as to how much time your employee’s computer or wireless device remains idle.
• You can even install keystroke monitoring software to see what your employees are typing on their keyboard.

However, the key rule here is that as you bring on new employees, you must notify them first that their work-related actions will be subject to monitoring.

1. E-Mail monitoring:
   

   Since you are providing an E-Mail system for your employees, you have every right to inspect and review the contents of it at any time you feel it is appropriate. This even holds true for personal (Read more...)