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Does Always On Mean Always Accountable to Your Employer?
by Ian Da Silva  on Jul 21, 2008 - 09:39 PM read 587 times
Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1762 |
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In the age of always on technology, which “allows” us to be connected to the office 24/7, it is getting harder and harder to determine when a personal and private activity is actually just as it’s described - personal and private. Just ask Colin Wrightman, Lara Logan, Max Mosley orLarry Craig, eachmentionedin a thought-provokingarticle in this morning’s Globe and Mail newspaper. Each of these individuals has been involved in highly-publicized and (morally-questionnable to some)activities, thateven thoughcarried outwhile“off the clock,” have hadpotentially markedeffects on their professional careers.
A particularsection of the article piqued my interest and really got me thinking:
Quoting the author: It is a strange new world for employers, who must be ready to protect their own image when embarrassing details of their employees’ lives become known.
Quoting an assistant professor from the Ivey Business School, Claus Rerup: We’re living in a more media-crazy world, where what your employees do can potentially have very bad implications for you…But people have not put two and two together that this could happen.
This brings me to a few questions: In such a time when Web 2.0 tools enable powerful mass collaboration and ever-decreasing barriers to communication and transparency, should employees’ private activities (legality assumed) be subject to review and possible reprimand at the hands of an employer? What is the employer’s role and whatshould be within their powerwhen an employee’sdamaging private activity suddenly becomes public? What is therole ofthe HR team and the boardroom when it comes time to “protect the company’s image?”
On top of the email handcuffs, has Web 2.0 helped create moral restraints as well?
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By: Naumi Haque
a reply to Does Always On Mean Always Accountable to Your Employer?
by Naumi Haque on Jul 22, 2008 - 04:06 PM read 47 times
Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1762#comment-153604
I love the punch, counter-punch in the article.
In this corner, Acadia University: The conduct giving rise to [the police's] ongoing investigation is utterly incompatible with the purpose, principles and operating imperatives of Acadia University.
And the challenger… Dr. Colin Wightman (actually Tom MacEwan, his lawyer): You can’t take a person’s private life, put it under a microscope and determine whether or not the employer agrees with it.
Acadia: A termination letter claimed he had used his work-issued laptop to engage in highly inappropriate communications of a sexual nature.
Wightman: If they’re suggesting that students and administration and faculty can only use computers for school-related purposes, that’s a bit hard to take. [...] The ability of an employer to curtain the private lives of its employees I think is very limited. For good reason.
Acadia: A section of the university’s code of conduct that states employees shall not engage in community or personal activities in which there could be a conflict with the best interest of the university.
Wightman: The letter of dismissal drips moral disapproval. [...] Whether it’s my age relative to the other woman, or my marital status, or the fact that bondage was involved, I have no idea.
No TKO - looks like this one is going to the judges…
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By: Brent
a reply to Does Always On Mean Always Accountable to Your Employer?
by Brent on Jul 24, 2008 - 10:26 PM read 48 times
Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1762#comment-154842
I suppose you need to weigh the legal costs vs. the intrinsic benefits you get from the firing. I would be somewhat concerned that firing employees could come back to haunt the firm. Other employees could start foreign for their own jobs and may not give maximum effort. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, don’t they?
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By: mark
a reply to Does Always On Mean Always Accountable to Your Employer?
by mark on Jul 25, 2008 - 06:32 AM read 44 times
Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1762#comment-154974
I went and read the report referred to in the Globe article (It’s on the Canadian Association of University Teachers website: caut.ca ) and discovered that Wightman actually made.his arrangements via his home computer and ISP, not Acadia’s…misuse of his Acadia computer is something that the university first alleged in his firing and doesn’t appear to have provided any details of.
Also, it looks like they fired him last September but my google searches didn’t find anything about this case until he filed his lawsuit ten months later…If there wasn’t any publicity about his.indiscretion or the RCMP investigation that cleared him of illegality, its hard to see how he could be fired for damaging the university’s reputation or anything like that. Surely nobody could be employed if they can fired because they *MIGHT* embarass their employer!
But the real question for me is why my employer can expect to invade my personal life but expects the reverse not to happen. I answer business-related email and.phone calls via my personal cell phone from 6am until late at night. My boss regularly calls me at home after supper to talk about work things, my personal laptop is filled with documents that I am reading/writing for work, etc. My employer expects that I will interweave my personal and professional lives for its benefit…I’d get fired for insubordination if I didn’t…so how can they be so innocently surprised if I use my work computer to order gifts, or to access my gmail to send a message to my girlfriend?
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