Why shouldn’t employers be allowed to read their employees e-mail?

Every person has the right to privacy and everyone should respect everybody’s vital space. But nowadays is common to hear that the employers are putting into practice a new method in order to know every movement in the company, including knowing if an employee is working.   Technology now makes it possible for employers to keep track virtually of all workplace communications by any employee. But is this correct? Three factors that employers should take into account before reading an employee’s e-mail are: the right to privacy, the risk to be involved in a problem and the respect to the employees.

The first fact is the right to privacy. Every person has privacy, privacy in our personal life, in our house, at work and in school. To be specific, at work employers and co-workers should respect our space including the e-mail. It is a lack of respect read an e-mail of another person, no matter if it is a personal e-mail or a workplace e-mail, for me every e-mail is private.

The second fact is the risk that employers have to be involved in a problem. What kind of problem? For example, if the company doesn’t have e-mail policies the employees can denounce the employer because that is not right, to check their e-mails and not tell them. In my opinion every company that wants to monitor the e-mails should inform their employees and also have a contract so they sign it. 

The last fact is the respect to the employees. This is very important; the respect is a value that everyone should have in life. We have to respect everyone including at work, and that includes respect the privacy. 

Unfortunately, this situation is very common now but employees can avoid problems by limiting the communications with family and friends and avoid sending any messages that others might interpret as unkind; even if the intent was humorous because it won't look that way to others. And for the employers that can disagree with this situation at work perfect because they will respect others but for those who have to check the e-mails maybe they can try reading only the ones that involved work and ignore the personal ones.