Employee perception towards electronic monitoring at work place and its impact on job satisfaction of software professionals in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Majority of the software development organizations in Sri Lanka today use some means of electronic technology to monitor their employee activities. Most of the software professionals perceive this as a serious matter, because the mutual trust that should be there between the employer and the employee is in question. On the other hand, employers justify electronic monitoring at work place in terms of protecting the company's confidential information, preventing the misuse of the organizational resources while uplifting the quality of work hence increasing the productivity. However, most employees believe that electronic monitoring at work place might negatively impact their work and privacy. This study attempts to reveal the relationship that might exist between the software professionals' perception towards electronic monitoring at work place and their job satisfaction, which is important to the employers in determining the long term profitability of their organizations. The population for this study is software professionals working in software organizations as well as non-software organizations who are doing in house development in Sri Lanka which is estimated to be around 33,048 (ICTA, 2007). Data collection has been carried via an online survey, among 380 software professionals in Sri Lanka. In the present study, Perceived Relevance to work and Personal Judgment of effectiveness were positively correlated with job satisfaction. This means that the software professionals, who view electronic monitoring as something which is relevant to their work and a way of uplifting the quality of their work, are satisfied in their jobs also. Further, it appeared that Perceived Invasion of Privacy was negatively correlated to job satisfaction, which sheds some light in organizational electronic monitoring policy making. Also, Perceived Task Satisfaction was negatively correlated to job satisfaction. This means that the software professionals, who thought that working in an electronically monitored environment makes their tasks more complex, are rather dissatisfied. Also, electronic monitoring hardly showed any impact for the software professionals with more than five years of professional experience. This emphasizes that the perception towards electronic monitoring becomes less significant along with the maturity of the software professional. This research brings out valuable results that can be incorporated in organizational security policy making by the managements of the software development organizations in Sri Lanka with a special emphasis on the job satisfaction of their employees, which is the most valuable asset of the organization. Further, the present study hints on other avenues that could be explored further as future research, in the field of electronic monitoring at work place and its impact on the individuals.