Since new technologies are ever growing, employers now have the chance to monitor (监控) their employees to make them spare more time to work when they use their phones, computer terminals, emails and even when an employee is using the Internet.
Recent surveys have shown that a majority of employers monitor their employees’ activities.It was found that three fourths of employers monitored the websites their employees visited in order to prevent improper surfing.The survey further indicated that 65% of employers used software to block connections to websites considered off limits to employees.One third of employers monitored their employees’ number of keystrokes and the amount of time spent on the keyboard and lastly just over half of the employers surveyed review and kept email messages.
Most of the time, email is not considered private if the email system is used at a company, the employer owns it and is allowed to review its contents.Email messages that are sent within the company, as well as those that are sent from the employee’s terminal to another company, or from another company to the employee are subject to monitoring.If an email is deleted out of the employee’s account, that doesn’t mean that they are totally deleted.The messages are kept in memory.Emails are often backed up along with other important data from the computer system.If an employer’s email policy specifically states that messages marked as “private” will be kept confidential (机密的),however, there may also be some exceptions to that policy (政策).
In order to know their employer’s email policy, employees should read over the employee handbook.If the handbook doesn’t address the issue of email monitoring, they should speak with their employer about their policy for emails and privacy.Currently there are very few laws that address workplace privacy; however, there are some organizations that are working to advocate for employees so that there will be a stronger government regulation of employee monitoring activities.
According to the author, the employers’ monitoring ____.
A.may be an efficient management method |
B.should be performed secretly |
C.has resulted from the development in computers |
D.is quite common nowadays |
Employers probably think that monitoring the employees can help them ____.
A.improve their work efficiency(有效) | B.use computers properly |
C.develop a way of keeping office secrets | D.reduce their mental pressures |
It can be inferred from the passage that ____.
A.employees should delete their own emails at once to keep them secret |
B.an employer’s email policy may protect the employees’ privacy |
C.nobody can help solve the problem of office privacy |
D.an employee may feel troubled by being monitored in the office |
The underlined phrase “advocate for” in the last paragraph means “____”.
A.tell the employees the truth |
B.publicly support |
C.ask the employees to be more attentive |
D.remind the employees of the possible failure |