Privacy of an Employee in the Workplace Assignment

Privacy of an Employee in the Workplace - Assignment Example The recent recession has actually increased the power of the employers and the employees suffered a lot because of that. Legal and ethical rights of the employees have been violated heavily by the corporate management in order to exploit the employees. This paper briefly analyses law, ethics and corporate governance at a workplace. An employee can expect reasonable privacy only when he was engaged in a work which needs accuracy, thoroughness and logic. For example, consider an artist or designer who is trying to make a new design for a product. The interference of others might distract his focus and he may take more time to complete the design. Even though America has a well defined legal system, the laws related to privacy of the employees at workplace seems to be weak. Each state has different privacy laws and the standardization of privacy laws across the country seems to be a distant dream. Some employers try to exert control over the worker’s life outside of the working hours (Halbert and Ingulli, 2008, p.79). For example, some workers smoke during their lunch break. Most of the organizations provide at least one or two hours lunch break. Employees often make use of this break for smoking or some enjoyment purpose. But some employers even restrict such things at the workplace which is not a good ide a. Employees should have the luxury of privacy at least at the break times. According to New York laws, it is illegal to fire an employee for engaging in off-hours sports, games, hobbies, exercise, reading, movie or TV watching (Halbert and Ingulli, 2008, p.80). Some organizations rate certain employee activities as legal or illegal based on the place and occasion when the action has been performed. For example, some organizations allow their workers to smoke in private places during their off-hours whereas smoking inside an enclosed office might be restricted. The activities of an employee should not cause any damage to the co-workers.  Ã‚