Black&White | Watching Brief

We’re fascinated by employers who spy on their employees’ Facebook pages and then complain about broken trust when they read something unflattering about the company!  Truth is, if you’ve got a disgruntled employee you should probably know about it before their grievance finds its way to cyberspace.  If you have a culture of open and constructive feedback within your business and if your management practices are clear and effective then there’s no reason for you to be in the dark and even less reason for your employees to be unhappy.

Beware of monitoring policies that you believe give you the right to invade your employees’ personal space. They probably don’t, and it’s a no-win all round if you rely on covert surveillance for the gathering of management information.  Article 8 of the Human Rights Act gives all individuals the right to a private home and family life and ‘correspondence’.  We think it’s only a question of time before a snooping employer finds itself on the wrong side of this legislation …