In this case, monitoring is used as a tool to show employees their work habits and what they need to change to improve their performance. Employees generally like this because they can see for themselves their weak and strong points, and they can use the information to improve their work methods. This knowledge can increase employee performance and efficiency. .
On the negative end of this employers cold be basing a persons performance on this. I know I sound like I am contradicting myself but everything isn't always as it seems. A employee could be doing something for the company but be flagged as a slacker. For example, I am working at MASCO at the moment. I was assigned a project to compare our website to other fortune 100 companies. All day for two weeks I was searching web sites and finally someone called the manager of the department to ask why I wasn't doing any work and just looking at websites all day. Little did this person know I was really competing my job. Now did the cameras and internet monitoring give me a fair chance? No in there eyes I was just fooling around until the saw the truth.
Employers could have a Duty ethical way of thinking. Most believe that it is there duty to monitor there employees and find out what's going on with the company. They uphold morals and try to abide by them. But is it morally acceptable for an employer to read his or her employee's e-mail? To formulate an opinion on this question we need to address Mill's principle of utility and some deontologys as well as who's rights are involved. Identifying these issues should provide enough information to form an opinion. First lets take a look at Mills principle of utility and how it is involved. How could an employer reading his employee's e-mail be considered an action that serves the greatest number of people? On the surface it appears quite the opposite. One person or a small group of managers monitoring e-mail traffic from all the employees appears to be wrong based on this analysis.