Keeping Tabs on Your Employees - A focus on monitoring your employees at work.
Easy access to the internet in the workplace means that your employees may be tempted to browse the web during their working day, infringing on your business’ time.
As an employer, you may often want to review employee’s work, check deadlines are met, ensure the quality of work is up to scratch and also check whether employees are misbehaving or time wasting.
Perhaps surprising to most people is that monitoring employees is generally lawful. This is on the proviso that the employer has a monitoring policy in place, employees are alerted that their internet usage, telephone calls and emails could be monitored and the employer can justify the monitoring.
So where do you draw the line between distinguishing what is private and what is related to work? What amounts to an employer protecting their business through monitoring or what is so intrusive that it can damage a good working relationship?
Here are my top tips for employers:
- Consider whether there are real benefits to monitoring staff - will it make a real difference to the productivity and profitability of the business?
- Be aware that monitoring staff at work could have an adverse effect on your working relationships
- Make it clear to staff what you will tolerate and what is considered a misuse of company time
- Remind employees of the business’ monitoring policy on a regular basis
- Make sure that the personal information of any employee, collated as a result of monitoring, is filed securely in accordance with the Data Protection Act
- Remember that intrusive monitoring could lead to a claim against an employer for unfair dismissal, constructive unfair dismissal, breach of contract or even harassment
An interesting case reached the European Court of Human Rights last year (Copland v UK). In this case, Ms Copland’s employer, Carmarthenshire College, appeared to believe that she had entered into an inappropriate relationship with one of the male directors. The college therefore instigated a monitoring process of her telephone calls, internet and email use, over the period in the region of 18 months. Ms Copland succeeded in her claim that the monitoring interfered with her right to respect for her private life and correspondence under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms Copland’s success is however unlikely to be repeated in that she was subjected to particularly extensive monitoring over a number of months. Also at the time of her monitoring the 2000 Regulations and the Data Protection Act was not in force, and she was only entitled to bring a claim for a breach of her human rights, because her employer was a public body.
If you are unsure of your rights as either an employer or an employee, it may be best to seek legal advice. Lemon&Co is experienced in these matters and able to offer help and advice.
February 2009
This article gives a general overview only and the legal position at the time of writing this article. It cannot be relied upon in any particular case. Specific legal advice must always be considered to include consideration as to whether the legal position contained in this article has changed since going to print. For further information and advice, please contact Paul Archer or Lauren Harkin on 01793 527141 or alternatively by email on Paul.Archer@lemon-co.co.uk or Lauren.Harkin@lemon-co.co.uk
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