Privacy

Should employers

have the right

to check their employees´ emails?

To give an assertive point of view, we need to know the meaning of the word privacy. According to Wikipedia privacy is “the ability of an individual or group to seclude themseles or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively”.

Based on the above information, I want to make a difference between personal information and job information. When we are at work, we should work only with job information, so here is where the paradoxical question comes out. If we are at work and our bosses want to check our email, are they going to check personal information or are they going to check information related to work? Because if they check job information, they are not violating our right to privacy; they are only doing their job.

Besides, we need to see this topic from two different perspectives. First, let see the employer’s position. As an employer, you need to be sure that everybody is doing his or her job in the best way and you also need to know and control what employees are doing, so checking emails is a good way to do this. Most of the companies have a corporative mail, so employees use it to receive and send information about work. Checking this email can be like a quality control system that employers can use to see if employees are fulfilling their tasks.

On the other hand, we have the employee position. How we can feel if we know that someone is checking what we are doing all the time. I think that this fact can create an uncomfortable environment at work. Employees that do not feel comfortable at work are not going to give the same dedication that those employees that feel comfortable at work.

Privacy is a controversial topic because both parts have valid reasons to agree or disagree with it. But not everything has to be black or white; I think that there are two key words that we need to take into count in our works; they are limits and empathy. As employees we need to understand our boss’s position and try to give the best of us and also get our bosses’ and coworkers’ confidence. There are sometimes emergencies where it is necessary to make a phone call or send an email, so, probably if we do it one time, nothing is going to happened, but if we always use work time to do personal things we are stealing our salary, so it is very important to know the limits and do not pass it. And as employers we need to trust our employees and make them feel comfortable at work.