Business 2.0: Why Spy?
Business 2.0: Why Spy?"Technology that monitors employees' Web usage sounds like a smart way to keep them focused on work. Wrong. Let 'em surf...
-- Studies show, for instance, that electronic monitoring results in lower job satisfaction, in part because people begin to believe the quantity of their work is more important than the quality.
-- Monitoring also induces what academics call psychological reactance: the tendency of people to rebel against constraints. Tell people they can't shop, they can't use corporate networks for personal business, they can't make personal phone calls, and their desire to do all those things goes up.
-- Another worrisome consequence stems from the self-fulfilling prophecy, which simply means that people behave as they are expected to. So if you expect an employee to do a good job, he or she probably will. Act as though you distrust people, and you create employees who are, in fact, less trustworthy."
Permalink | Tuesday, February 25, 2003
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