How do privacy issues at the workplace raise ethical issues involving individual rights as well as those involving utilitarian consequences?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Workplace privacy issues evoke an inherent conflict between what some may consider to be a fundamental right of the employer to protect its interests and the similarly grounded right of the employee to be free from wrongful intrusions into her or his personal affairs. This conflict can arise in the workplace environment through the regulation of personal activities or personal choices, or through various forms of monitoring. Some forms of monitoring, such as drug testing, may occur after a job offer has been made but even before the individual begins working. Other forms might also occur once the individual begins to work, such as electronic surveillance of e-mail.
Similarly, contrasting utilitarian arguments can be offered on the ethics of monitoring employees. The employer can argue that the only way to manage the workplace effectively and efficiently is to maintain knowledge about and control over all that takes place within it. The employee can simultaneously contend that she or he will be most productive in a supportive environment based on trust, respect, and autonomy. In any case, the question of balance remains. It remains to be addressed whose rights should prevail or which consequences take precedent.