Waterbee Toy Company Case

Waterbee Toy Company began designing and manufacturing wooden water toys in 1906. By the late 1990's Waterbee had evolved its wooden toy business into other categories such as action figures, musical instruments and even electronics. Waterbee had recently seen sales grow very quickly but staffing levels had actually decreased by nearly 50%. This meant employees were spending more and more time in the office.

With the advent of the internet and the search and email functions that came with it, Waterbee was put into a position that was very common among employers during that time; it needed to re-look at its privacy policies and decide whether or not employees could use the internet for personal use. And if Waterbee did allow it, it needed to decide if and how it would regulate the personal usage. Many ethical and privacy issues factored into the decision making, and Waterbee realized there were consequences to whatever decisions they made.The internet's rapid spread and growth in popularity among the public meant that people were using it for communication and education in their everyday lives. As employees spent more time at the office, the demand to use the internet for personal use was growing.

Though the official company policy was that internet usage must be for business purpose, the decision was made to step back from that policy and let employees use search and email functions for personal use. Waterbee chose to monitor employees usage, but the results after the first week were surprising. For example, one employee spent an entire day on playboy. com.

This employee did not work in his own office, which meant other employees could see his monitor. The Security team, faced with taking action on a number of employees, and complicated by legal issues, then advised HR to stop monitoring usage. HR, however, stuck to the orignal plan and took action on the employees who misused the Internet. Firstly, ethical and privacy issues were raised around the allowance of the Internet for personal use.

For one, since Waterbee was allowing employee's to use the Internet without restrictions, the company was risking exposing proprietary information like engineering secrets, product knowledge, etc.They were also risking employee's abusing the Internet. On the one hand, employees could visit sites that could make other employees uncomfortable and make for an unsafe workplace. One the other hand, their employees were adults to be trusted. Finally, the company was risking a drop in efficiency since by spending personal time on the Internet.

That meant less time was spent adding value to the organization. But all of the employees who would have access were salaried employees who were trusted to get their work done. The other issue raised was whether or not to monitor the personal usage of the Internet.On the face of it, the company had the right to monitor Internet usage. The Security team advised the HR team to allow them to track employees usage.

However, by monitoring their employees, a sense of distrust and angst could build. Morale could disintegrate and productivity could drop. But if employees don't feel the threat of being monitored, they're more likely to visit sites that are considered against company policy. There are three options: 1- don’t allow personal Internet usage by blocking any non-work related site and email sites. By choosing this option, you won't have to monitor usage.

However, you show distrust of employees and you run the risk of losing employees to companies that embrace technology and an employee’s personal life. 2- Allow personal use of the internet AND do not monitor usage. By not monitoring usage, you run the risk of employees visiting pornographic or other sites that could make for an unsafe workplace. 3- Allow personal usage AND monitor the sites visited. By going this route, you show employees that you trust them to make good decisions, but that you also are protecting the company’s proprietary information and protect against an unsafe workplace. In my opinion, option three is the best choice.

The Internet is too big to ignore, and employees have a right to use the Internet at work as long as they are getting their work done. However, since an employee is on company time, they should not have free reign to visit any site they want, or send proprietary and potential damaging information to people outside the organization. This decision is based on what I feel is best for the organization and their employees. It's also based on my personal experience as an employee. Also, reading other companies privacy policy have led me to believe that this is the common practice for well thought of organizations.