7.

0 Obtaining Information

Polygraph Test, Personality Test

7.0 Monitoring Employees on the
Job
 Introduction

 According to the U.S. Supreme Court, privacy is

“the right to be let alone.”
 The Court considers privacy to be one of the most
comprehensive and valued rights of citizens.
What moral issues arise in the workplace
regarding privacy?
What are a company’s responsibilities
regarding employee privacy?

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 Organizational Influence in Private
Lives
 Privacy is widely acknowledged to be a
fundamental right.
 Yet corporate behavior and policies often threaten
privacy, especially in the case of employees.
 This can happen through the release or exchange
of personal (or “privileged”) information about
employees
 It also occurs when imposing employer values
upon employees.
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 Organizational Influence in Private
Lives
 The importance of privacy – Our concern for
privacy has three aspects:
(1) We want to control intimate or personal
information about ourselves and not permit it to
be freely available to everyone.
(2) We don’t want our private selves to be on public
display.
(3) We value being able to make certain personal
decisions autonomously.

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• Michael a manager of a
McDonald’s outlet.
• He had an affair with
coworker.
• The romantic voice-mail
messages he sent her
were retrieved and
played by his boss.
• He was fired!!!
6
 Organizational Influence in Private
Lives
 There is no consensus among philosophers or
lawyers about the following:
(a) How to define the concept of privacy.
(b) How far to extend the right to privacy.
(c) How to balance a concern for privacy
against other moral considerations.
 The burden is on the organization to establish the
legitimacy of encroaching on the personal sphere
of the individual.
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 Organizational Influence in Private
Lives
 Legitimate and illegitimate influence: A firm is
legitimately interested in whatever significantly
influences work performance.
 It has a legitimate interest in employee conduct off
the job only if conduct affects work performance.
 It is difficult to say precisely what constitutes a
significant influence on job performance.
 It is also difficult to spell out exactly when off-duty
conduct truly affects company image.
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 Organizational Influence in Private
Lives
 Issues of privacy interference in the workplace:
(1) Legitimate and illegitimate influence.
(2) Involvement in civic activities.
(3) Participation in wellness programs.

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 Obtaining Information

Businesses often obtain information about their

employees through testing and/or monitoring.
Informed consent: Its presence or absence is the
main ethical issue in testing and monitoring – it
implies deliberation and free choice.
Deliberation: Employees must be provided all key
facts concerning the information gathering
procedure and understand its consequences.
Free choice: The decision to participate must be
voluntary and un-coerced.
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• GPS technology lets companies track
employees when they are in the company
vehicles – often without their knowledge.

11
• District court in New
Mexico permitted the
firing an employee with
excellent work record
because she married to a
worker at a competing
supermarket.

12
 Obtaining Information

 Polygraph tests: Businesses cite several reasons

for using the polygraph test:
(1) It is a fast and economical way to verify
information provided by job applicants and
screen candidates for employment.
(2) It allows employers to identify dishonest
employees or job candidates.
(3) It eliminates the need for audits and oppressive
controls, so may increase workers’ freedom.
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 Obtaining Information

 Those who defend polygraphs rely on several

assumptions that are open to question:
(1) Telling lies triggers an involuntary, distinctive
response – but this is not always the case.
(2) Polygraphs are extraordinarily accurate – this
has been disputed.
(3) Polygraphs cannot be beaten – they may catch
the guilty but also generate false positives,
wrongly identifying as liars those who told the
truth.
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 Obtaining Information

 Additional issues to consider in evaluating the

use of polygraphs in the workplace:
(1) The information the organization seeks should be
clearly and significantly related to the job.
(2) The grounds must be compelling enough to
justify violating the individual’s privacy and
freedom.
(3) The data gathering must be evaluated – the type
of information being gathered, who will have
access to it, and how it will be discarded.
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 Obtaining Information

Personality tests: One of the most popular, the

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, is used by eighty-
nine of the Fortune 100 companies, and is taken by
more than 2.5 million Americans every year.
Such tests help businesses both screen candidates
and match individuals to appropriate jobs.
But they involve questionable psychological
premises (that individuals fit into a small number
of personality types), may invade privacy, and may
reinforce conformity.
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 Obtaining Information

 Monitoring employees on the job: This may be

necessary, but it can be abused and can violate
privacy.
 Like testing, it often gathers personal information
about workers without their informed consent.
 Organizations frequently confuse notification of
such practices with employee consent, but
notification does not constitute consent.

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 Obtaining Information

 Drug testing: Became an issue when the National

Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began
banning college football players from postseason
bowl games based on their steroid test results.
 A study in the Journal of the American Medical
Association supported drug testing: Postal
workers testing positive in a pre-employment test
were 50 percent more likely to be fired, injured,
disciplined, or absent than those testing negative.

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 Obtaining Information

Additional considerations regarding drug testing:

(1) Excessive media attention and political posturing
can lead to extreme or unnecessary measures.
(2) Drugs differ, so one must carefully consider
which drugs one is testing for, and why.
(3) Companies must determine how to respond
appropriately to individuals who fail the test.
(4) Any warranted tests must be careful to respect
the dignity and rights of the persons to be tested.

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 SHE SNOOPS TO CONQUER
• Jean worried shrinkage in the jewelry dept: not due to
damages or improper handling or shoplifting.
• Jean instructed Chief Security (Matt) to do body and
belongings to the workers when leaving the store. Nothing
turned up.
• Matt suggested of installing CCTV & hidden microphones in all
rooms. Jean agreed.
• Within 10 days, the culprit was napped from CCTV recordings
only.
• From microphones the following info were available:
• 1 staff sells marijuana. 1 plan to quit without notice. 3 got
food stamp fraudulently. 1 buyer plan to discredit Jean.

20
 She Snoops to conquer.
• Jean worried shrinkage in
the jewelry dept: not due Discuss:
to damages or improper • Is it ethical to
handling or shoplifting. resort to such
• Jean instructed Chief control?
Security (Matt) to do body • Can you offer
and belongings to the alternative
workers when leaving the actions?
store. Nothing turned up.

21
 • DISCUSS
She Snoops to •Conquer
Do employees have a
right not to be spied?
• Matt suggested of • If you are employee of
installing CCTV & hidden the store, would you
microphones in all rooms. think your privacy
Jean agreed. being wrongly
invaded?
• Within 10 days, the culprit
was napped from CCTV • If you are the owner of
recordings only. the store, whose
interest is more
important: employer
or employee?
• Is the action ethical? 22
 She Snoops to Conquer
DISCUSS
• From microphones the • Your advise on
following info were how to handle the
available: information
gathered.
• 1 staff sells marijuana.
• Explain by
• 1 staff plan to quit without appealing to
notice. relevant ideals,
• 3 got food stamp obligations and
fraudulently. effects.
• 1 buyer plan to discredit
Jean.
23
 Working Conditions
 Health and safety: The number of occupational
hazards is awesome and generally unrecognized.
 U.S. Census Bureau indicates that about five
thousand workers are killed on the job each year.
 The director of the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) says thirty-two
workers are killed on the job each day, more than
doubling the Census figure.

Business Ethics
Chapter 9
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 Working Conditions

 Census Bureau statistics reveal that the rate of

industrial injury has been declining since 1960.
 But the absolute number of workers disabled at
work every year is ever increasing – about 3.7
million men and women.
 Job-related injuries and illnesses cost the nation
$65 billion a year – $171 billion when indirect
costs such as lost wages are included.

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 Working Conditions

 Employers clearly have a moral obligation not to

expose workers to needless risks or to negligently
or recklessly endanger their lives or health.
 Employers, however, are not morally responsible
for all workplace accidents caused by coworkers’
negligence or failure to exercise due care.
 In some circumstances or in certain occupations,
an injured worker can reasonably be said to have
voluntarily assumed the risk.
Business Ethics
Chapter 9
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 Working Conditions

 Problems with voluntary assumption of risk: It

presupposes informed consent, which requires the
worker to have been fully informed of the danger
and to have freely chosen to assume it.
 Employees have a moral right to refuse dangerous
work (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court).
 Employers, in turn, have a moral obligation not to
expose workers to needless risk.

Business Ethics
Chapter 9
27
 Working Conditions

 What causes accidents? Accidents don’t just

happen, but often result from poor job practices
and environments that fail to prioritize safety.
 OSHA: With the 1970 Occupational Safety and
Health Act, regulation of working conditions
passed from the states to the federal government.
 The thrust of the act was to ensure safe and
healthy working conditions and impose a duty on
employers to provide those conditions.
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Chapter 9
28
 Working Conditions: New health
challenges
 The scope of occupational hazard is greater than
many people think.
 The numbers harmed by work-related injuries
and illness may be generally underestimated.
 These include musculoskeletal disorders, shift work,
fatigue, and stress.
 OSHA’s enforcement of existing regulations has
too often been lax.

Business Ethics
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29
 Working Conditions

 Management styles: Nothing affects environment

more than management style and quality.
 In The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas
McGregor described two management styles:
Theory X managers believe that workers dislike
work and try to avoid.
Theory Y managers assume that employees
basically like work and view it as something
natural and potentially enjoyable.

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 Working Conditions

 Theory X managers coerce and bully workers into

conformity with organizational objectives.
 Theory Y managers believe that workers are
motivated by pride and self-fulfillment as well as
money and job security, not dodging responsibility
but accepting it and even seeking it out.
 Other management styles include Theory Z
managers, who hold Japanese-style respect for
workers.
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 Working Conditions

 One management style eschews a traditionally

masculine approach (hierarchical, aggressive,
winner-take-all) in favor of one more congenial to
women (personal, empathetic, and collaborative).
 Managers who operate with rigid assumptions
about human nature, or who devote themselves to
infighting and political maneuvering, may damage
employees’ interests and lose their respect.

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 Working Conditions

 Day care and maternity leave:

 Women still bear the primary responsibility for
child rearing.
 So their increased participation in the paid
workforce has led to a growing demand for
maternity-leave policies and child-care services.
 In its research of 168 countries, a Harvard School
of Public Heath study found that more than 160
guarantee paid maternity leave, whereas the U.S.
mandates only unpaid leave (except in California
and Washington). Business Ethics
Chapter 9
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 Working Conditions

 Business and child care: Some argue that offering

child care as a fringe benefit, and dealing flexibly
with employees’ family needs, can prove
advantageous for most employers.
 Such policies can be cost-effective in the narrower
sense – decreasing absenteeism, boosting morale
and loyalty, enhancing productivity, and attracting
new recruits.

Business Ethics
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34
 Working Conditions

 Three moral concerns:

(1) Women have a right to compete on equal terrain
with men, and paid leave can reinforce that right.
(2) Development of potential capacities is a moral
ideal, and perhaps a human right, so women
should not be forced to choose between
childbearing and pursuing careers.
(3) The work world often reproduces the traditional
male-female division of labor within the family.
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Redesigning Work: Dissatisfaction on the job
 The Work in America report (1970) identified four
chief sources of worker dissatisfaction:
(1) Industry’s preoccupation with quantity, not
quality; rigid rules and regulations; and the
monotonous repetition of small, fragmented tasks.
(2) Lack of opportunities to be one’s own boss.
(3) “Bigness.”
(4) workers’ feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness,
isolation, and self-estrangement or
depersonalization.

36
 Redesigning Work
Factors affecting job satisfaction:
1. Employees at all occupational levels value
interesting work,
2. enough support and information to accomplish
the job,
3. enough authority to carry out the work,
4. good pay,
5. the opportunity to develop special skills,
6. job security, and
7. a chance to see results of their work.
37
 Redesigning Work

 Importance of job satisfaction: The design of work

materially affects the total well-being of workers.
Example: Studies show that job satisfaction is
the strongest predictor of longevity.
Therefore, work content and job satisfaction
are paramount moral concerns.
Satisfied workers are also more productive.
Business has an economic reason as well as a
moral obligation to improve work quality.
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 Redesigning Work

 Quality of work life: For some firms, this means

providing workers with less supervision and more
autonomy.
 For others, it means providing work opportunities
to develop and refine skills.
 For still others, it means providing for greater
participation in the conception, design, and
execution of their work – that is, with greater
responsibility and a deeper sense of achievement.
Business Ethics
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39
Thank you

40
 • DISCUSS
She Snoops to •Conquer
Do employees have a
right not to be spied?
• Matt suggested of • If you are employee of
installing CCTV & hidden the store, would you
microphones in all rooms. think your privacy
Jean agreed. being wrongly
invaded?
• Within 10 days, the culprit
was napped from CCTV • If you are the owner of
recordings only. the store, whose
interest is more
important: employer
or employee?
• Is the action ethical? 41
 She Snoops to Conquer
DISCUSS
• From microphones the • Your advise on
following info were how to handle the
available: information
gathered.
• 1 staff sells marijuana.
• Explain by
• 1 staff plan to quit without appealing to
notice. relevant ideals,
• 3 got food stamp obligations and
fraudulently. effects.
• 1 buyer plan to discredit
Jean.
42