Some employee monitoring technologies give employers the capability to flag inappropriate language on apps and identify harassment. If that was all Amazon was doing, its consideration of a tool to block speech on an internal messaging app might not have raised eyebrows.
But based on leaked documents, Amazon is reportedly considering blocking words and phrases such as injustice, ethics, living wage, this is dumb, robots, restrooms and others that might signal employee discontent over working conditions.
Details of the Amazon documents, which the company isn't denying, were recently published in a story by The Intercept. Amazon said the program to censor messages hasn't been launched, and if it does launch, the only words "that may be screened are ones that are offensive or harassing, which is intended to protect our team," said Barbara Agrait, an Amazon spokesperson, in an email to SearchHRSoftware.
Still, the leaked documents raise broad questions about employee monitoring -- whether organizations should deploy the tools and, if they do, how they should be used. HR technology is available to analyze employee sentiment in communications and flag signals of, for instance, potential employee burnout or to identify someone at risk of quitting. Other employee monitoring tools can help assess employee productivity, such as checking calendars and emails to glean an employee's efforts.
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