Reality check: Keeping up with the telecommuting employees
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From virus testing to medical privacy, the pandemic has created a host of legal hurdles from employers. And then there’s this.
A housewife with a husband telecommuting from the family playroom wrote to a business management advice columnist, posing this question: “Can my husband’s employer constantly record all the conversation in our house?”
“They were given company computers and phones to use,” the woman wrote to askamanager.org this month. Yet a “new update” the company system “means the phone is continuously recording everything around it. When I’m downstairs with the kiddos, I chat with my husband, especially during slow times. My husband’s phone has a mute button, but it randomly will click off without warning. Is this legal?”
After chiding her husband’s employer on this “ridiculous impulse” to change its phone policy — the impulse known as “we don’t believe anyone is working if we don’t have minute-to-minute proof” — Askamanager.org consulted with attorneys.
As with most legal questions “it depends on the state in which you live,” the columnist wrote, urging the woman to consult with an attorney. “And talk to your husband about what this says about his employer and what else might be going on at this job — because it’s very unlikely that this is the only serious problem there.”
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