The vice president for human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company’s president.

“In an effort to improve our employees’ productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees’ Internet use from their workstations. Employees who use the Internet from their workstations need to be identified and punished if we are to reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. By installing software to detect employees’ Internet use on company computers, we can prevent employees from wasting time, foster a better work ethic at Climpson, and improve our overall profits.”

The above article was sent as a recommendation from the vice president for human resources at Climpson Industries to the company’s president. The arguer wants to recommend the implementation of electronic monitoring of employee’s internet use from their work stations to improve employees’ productivity. The arguer gives various arguments in favor of his recommendation. The first argument which the arguer gives in support of his recommendation is the identification and punishment that needs to be levied on employees who use internet from their work stations. This would reduce the number of working hours spent on personal or recreational activities. The second argument presented by the arguer is that by installing software that detects employee’s internet use on company computers wastage of time can be prevented and it would yield better profits for the company. The arguer fails to justify his stand and therefore his recommendation falls short of relevant proofs.

The first argument presented by the arguer is absolutely baseless as the arguer mentions about punishing those employees who use internet from their work place. The arguer has not mentioned in the argument why there was internet in the work place. The internet facility must be for employees to help them to perform their work better. The arguer has also not mentioned whether the employees were using internet in their rest hours. It is very much possible that the usage must be more during rest hours. Even if the employees are using more internet then that must be to aid their work. If spending time on internet was such a waste then instead of punishing employees internet should be removed from the work place. The arguer mentions about punishing those employees who would use internet for their personal use but this step would be too harsh on the employees. This would stop employees from using internet for office use also as it is very difficult to determine how much internet is used for office and personal use.

The second argument presented by the arguer is the software that would detect an employee’s internet usage and help in stopping wastage of time and thus help in company profits. The arguer fails to bring into notice that if such a facility of using internet would be debarred then out of monotony the employee would not be able to work better which would result in decreased productivity and hence less profits. The arguer also mentions about good work ethics but fails to bring into notice that employees need recreation too and if there is no other source of recreation then there would be fall in productivity.

The arguer fails to convince us in regard to his recommendation. The recommendation has a very negative approach as it can be detrimental for the personal interest of an employee. Therefore, this recommendation should not be accepted as instead of increasing the productivity for the organization this step can decrease the productivity of the organization.