Monitoring people in office could kill their will to work

Someone recently wrote on a social networking site that he had been laid off after the office discovered he had submitted his resume to an online recruitment agency during office hours.

The company reportedly uses a sensory mechanism to monitor employees' turnover intention, especially of those who seem to be working passively. Equipped with such systems, employers can get details of the number of times employees visited job websites, keywords in their chats and more.

The fact that companies keep such a strict eye on their employees is a cause for concern. There are those who say that the employees should not be doing anything unrelated to work at the workplace or during working hours, but if left unchecked employees worry that they will soon lose their privacy.

After all, regardless of how justified the snooping is, digital monitoring is becoming increasingly common and more enterprises are using it to manage employees. Some companies use mobile apps that can monitor employees not only during working hours, but also during lunch breaks and off-work hours.

A company in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, once gave high-tech cushions to employees, which can monitor their heartbeat, breathing and other physical conditions, and conclude whether or not the employees are at their desks working. A retail enterprise once collected the "non-working flow" of employees during working hours and made it public.

It is safe to say there is no original sin in technology, and the key lies in what the user does with it. Enterprises should not infringe upon employees' privacy and other legitimate rights and interests. According to the Personal Information Protection Law, enterprises should collect and process employees' personal information on the basis of their work needs, and should inform employees in advance or get their approval. They should also prevent possible leakage of personal information and assume corresponding responsibilities for this.

Such "strict monitoring" could make employees lose their enthusiasm for work. It certainly isn't a good way to motivate employees to work. Such digital management should be used moderately to improve efficiency. Labor supervision departments would do well to strengthen the supervision of employers to stop them from infringing upon employees' rights and interests.