Concern: The main issue in this case revolves around the legitimacy of using surveillance footage for issues
around management.
Various firms use CCTV for a variety of safety purposes but this case also emphasizes on how the CCTV technology can be used and
who should have the right to access it.
1. What are the crucial facts and assumptions?
• Murray is a rising star. Being his first management job, he
wants to impress the management to get bigger role at East
Coast a place where he hails from.
• It is evident that the head office wants to address productivity
inefficiencies. Discussion with senior staff gave a starting point
to address the problem – staff not pulling their in weight and
wasting time in certain business areas
• Facts on CCTV - Usage of digital evidence in case of issues in a
customer service setting and concerns with privacy and
storage of data
• Assumption: As the CCTV were already installed, the manager
assumed that they could be used for monitoring the
employees as well and the employees would have no issue
with it.
2. Who should participate in the decision making process?
In the given case, Murray has decided to take a decision on using
CCTV surveillance data to improve the productivity of the
employees. He was the only person to be involved in the decision
process, whereas all the stakeholders such as the senior
managers and the union leaders of the staff must have been
considered while laying down the monitoring and evaluation
plan.
3. Which course of action meets the basic obligations?
There are three ways of approaching the methodology of
implementing the decision.
One is to hard pull them – embarrass the defaulters
Second is keeping the employees informed about the new
evaluation criteria through CCTV monitoring.
Third is by taking in opinions from the employees about the
evaluation criteria
4. Which course of action will do more good than
harm?
Setting up the CCTVs is a good move for evaluating the
performance of employees. However, prior to doing so, a
notice should have be circulated or a note to be put up
mentioning the area under surveillance to keep the staff
members and other people updated to avoid any privacy
related concerns.
5. What course of action can I/We live with in good
conscience?
The course of action that I would have taken is that after
analyzing the CCTV tapes and trying to figure out why
there were such inefficiencies at work, I would try to
consult all the stakeholders including the staff members
and senior managers in deciding where the root causes lie
and how such an issue could be resolved, rather than
making the decision on my own , be it trying to figure out a
work plan or embarrass the staff members for their
inefficient performance.
6. What can we actually accomplish? What are the
major steps in plan of action?
• Better evaluation criteria to address production
efficiency.
• Increased trust factor among the employees and
manager.
Steps:
• Acquiring the evidences through correct process.
• Involve the necessary stakeholders in the decision
making process
• Ensure maintaining the privacy of employees.
Roll no: I002, I012, I022, I024 and I045