Privacy

Companies should not be allowed to read their employees' emails because respecting worker privacy increases employee morale and improves the company's public image. Although employees should not be taking care of personal affairs while at work, the occasional email sent during a lunch or coffee break is harmless to company productivity. In fact, productivity depends on happy workers, and happy workers are those who feel comfortable, secure, and respected in their place of employment. Therefore, employees should be permitted a certain degree of discreet emails, just as they would be allowed to talk on their phones during breaks. Thus, one of the main reasons why managers should not be allowed to read employee emails is because doing so demonstrates great disrespect. Employees who feel disrespected will come to resent their employers and are less likely to remain loyal to the job, and consequently more likely to lie, quit, or call in sick. An employee who feels disrespected will put less effort into their jobs, whereas an employee who feels like their managers care about their personal needs is far more likely to take pride in his or her work. If the company wants productive employees who give back to their places of employment and remain committed to company values, then reading employee emails should be prohibited. Reading employee emails represents a gross violation of privacy, which should be protected in an employee bill of rights. Even though employers need to make sure that employees are not playing games or doing too much personal emailing on company time, a certain degree of personal emails should be permitted, tolerated, or even encouraged to make workers feel at home and comfortable while in the office. Finally, reading employee emails is a type of privacy violation that garners bad publicity and the company might suffer poor public relations if it becomes notorious for reading employee emails. Reading employee emails should not be tolerated because ultimately it harms the company.