In Brief

Employee Monitoring

Royal London, a mutual life and pension company, went looking for PC monitoring tools in August 2005.

By Margaret Locher

May 01, 2006 — CSO —

Royal London, a mutual life and pension company, went looking for PC monitoring tools in August 2005. This isn't unusual: A 2005 American Management Association survey showed three out of four companies watch workers' website surfing. What's instructive is that once Royal London decided to use a 3ami monitoring tool, the company began an awareness campaign for its 2,900 employees. HR talked to workers from each business area to ensure that employees were comfortable with the security changes. New employees learn about the setup on their first day. The company posted Internet usage polices on its IT security intranet, says Nick Harwood, group IT security manager.

It turns out that PC monitoring can serve as an unofficial gauge of workplace climate, experts say. If employees are satisfied with their jobs, monitoring will not bother them. "If you've got a good working environment, your legitimate security activities will be perceived as benign. [But] if you're running a slave ship, the rowers will distrust every action," says Wally Bock, author of Performance Talk.

David Krulewicz, an attorney with Stark & Stark in Princeton, N.J., says that companies should have Internet filters, confidentiality agreements with their employees, and network alerts for inappropriate keywords in employee e-mails.