Psychological Workplace Surveillance

Introduction

The study need to examine how employees feel about surveillance in context of the psychological contract they have with their employer. The research related to psychological contracts and surveillance effects on the psychological contract from the employee’s perspective will be reviewed. After reviewing literature related to psychological contracts and relevant literature related to expectancy theory and the organization’s right to protect itself, the two hypotheses are proposed. Using a survey created for the study the two hypotheses are tested using a convenience sample of employees of a small, in a manufacturing sector.

Background

The effect of employee surveillance on the psychological contract in manufacturing sector

This has resulted in numerous initiatives by the employers in order to improve productivity. Companies have the right and the obligation to operate efficiently some oversight of employees is undoubtedly necessary some authors argue that workplace surveillance has moved beyond a legitimate interest in productivity. The line between appropriate and intrusive workplace surveillance may not always be obvious Rousseau (2011) points outs that surveillance for the sake of the business efficiency might have opposite effect technology advances have affected the employer needs and expectations as well as employee behaviours and role responsibility. These changes mandated new roles of technology monitoring. With this increasing use of electronic monitoring in the workplace other issues of ethics, trust, procedural fairness, and employee reactions come to the forefront of organizational settings and effectiveness. Common sense dictates that monitoring can be used effectively to assist the organization in improving performance and protecting itself from potential hazardous behaviours and wasteful actions from employees However, what is the psychological cost that employees pay from constant surveillance, and does it hinder the organization in the maximum attainment of its goals. Ethical and performance implications of electronic surveillance

“The right to privacy”, though not officially or legally recognized, can be seen as providing four protective functions for the individual employee: (Velasquez, 2002), 1.) It ensures individuals that others do not acquire information that would expose them to harm, 2.) Privacy protects individual form unwanted and unwarranted intrusions, 3.) Privacy helps protect the individuals’ loved ones or others that they care about, and 4.) Privacy prevents involuntary self-incrimination. The argument has been put forth that employee privacy is a “moral obligation” of the organization (Brown, 1996) and key determinates of relevance, consent, and methods (Valesquez, 1992) should be incorporated into all electronic monitoring policies and practices of organizations Guest and Conway (2000) put forward two advantages to the study of the psychological contract. Firstly, the psychological contract is valuable because it recognises the individualisation of the employment relationship. Both parties in the employment relationship employer and employee have their own views on the mutual obligations. The psychological contract is about subjective perceptions. Secondly, although the psychological contract contains the expectations and concerns of the individual employee, it also allows the contextual factors to shape individual attitudes and behaviour. These contextual factors include company policy, union