Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate, that it is sometimes difficult for the laws to keep up with the capabilities of employee monitoring tools, like
call accounting and call detail records.
Add to it the boundary between work and home is disappearing. Many employers are now accustomed to employee availability during personal hours for any crises or to finish critical projects that require more time than is available during normal business hours. With the explosion of PDA/mobile phone technology, many employees can receive business emails and phone calls no matter where they are or when. One television commercial, advertising such technology, shows an employer giving a new employee an orientation to the company and demonstrating her new PDA/Mobile phone. She asks something like, "And where will my office be?" As they walk outside, he says "Your office is, well, anywhere."
But as the wall between work and home comes down, not only does work go home, but home can come to work. It's no longer realistic for an employer to expect an employee to refrain from any personal communication or actions during business hours, while work still invades their personal time away from the office. This brings cause for many employees to be concerned about their rights to privacy.
Many call reporting applications can record phone calls for training, customer service quality purposes and even as documentation in customer litigations, however, per California state law, Public Utilities Commission General Order 107-B requires that parties to a call be informed that the conversation is recorded or monitored by either putting a beep tone on the line or playing a recorded message.
But what if it's not about recording the calls, but simply using call tracking tools to document call frequency and the data collected with
call detail record? The collected data can be invaluable for monitoring sales trends, toll fraud, or for telecom expense management, something that can save many large-scale corporations millions of dollars.
Few if any laws regulate this data collection; however the capability to collect data on the telephone numbers dialed from phone extensions as well as the length of each call is commonplace. Where employee monitoring is concerned, this information may be used to evaluate the amount of time spent by employees with clients or on personal calls. Employees are often concerned that the information gathered could be used unfairly to evaluate their efficiency with clients without consideration of the quality of service. Or that they may receive even a brief personal call that an employer may hold against them.
Thankfully, most employers do not have issues with incidental personal calls, email or Internet use when kept to a minimum and remains benign in nature. Perhaps the answer lies in setting boundaries for both employee abuse of those privileges and employer expectations outside of the office. All policies should be clearly defined, and any monitoring technology as well as how that technology will be used, should be disclosed.
It's also important to make employees aware that many of these technologies have invaluable applications far beyond monitoring the comings and goings of employees and are of huge benefit to corporations in business forecasting. However, as with anything, abuse of these technologies should be reported to the appropriate authorities. Employees should also be informed of the various special interest groups specializing in employee privacy issues, such as National Work Rights Institute (www.workrights.org), 9 to 5: The National Association of Working Women (www.9to5.org), Work Place Fairness (www.workplacefairness.org), or the American Civil Liberties Union (www.aclu.org).
Until legislation catches up to technology, it is always advisable to reassure employees' their privacy will be respected, but encourage them to make and receive personal communications within reason and as often as possible using personal cell phones or non-work email accounts, rather than company resources.
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Author, Karen Ritz, VP Business Development for TelSoft Solutions, writes on the business benefits of call accounting and call detail record technology. More information can be found at http://www.telsoft-solutions.com.
