FINAL WORD
test. If an employee can perform
his or her duties at the required
level, they have every chance
of winning the case of unfair
dismissal in court. Loyalty to the employer matters
a lot when it affects the business.
Only if an employer has paid
special attention to ‘terms and
conditions’ which states that any
sign and evidence of alcohol at a
workplace leads to unavoidable
dismissal, it is virtually impossible
to justify firing an employee.
Special software systems that
control the behaviour and
communication of
employees within the team
can detect signs quicker than
common observation. Personal qualities, hobbies,
circumstances often affect
the work of an employee;
having entered the office,
we are still those people we
have always been. We don’t
switch into robots with a set of
professional functions.
Problems with law
The line between the
private and corporate
Sergey Ozhegov, CEO at SearchInform
Problems are different. An
employee can violate traffic rules, fight with
a neighbour or refuse to pay alimony, but
when he or she faces a trial for fraud, a major
fine or punishment for criminal behaviour,
the company/employer can’t remain silent
and has no option but to act.
A rogue employee will cast a shadow on the
reputation of the organisation. He or she can
drop out of work for a long time while the
problems with paying a fine can be solved at
the expense of the company, through fraud,
bribes or kickbacks.
Connection with banned
organisations: Terrorism, weapons
I think it’s pretty much a no-comment
section; this issue is always tracked.
Employees with radical views make you
expect anything including recruiting
colleagues to organise a terrorist act on the
territory of the company. The problem of
terrorism is one of those that require well-
conducted approach. The tragic events in
France in 2015 contributed to the request
from 87% of SearchInform clients asking to
install anti-terrorist policies.
Debts and credits
Situations are different as well, but can be
equally tense; a debt, a large loan and the
inability to pay it off. Circumstances force
people to seek solutions. And they go for it,
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INTELLIGENTCIO
accept extra deals to earn money, kickbacks,
bribes or even agree to steal data to sell it.
South Africa ranked highly showing an
impressing number of debtors. According
to the statistics (2014), 86% of the
population applied for a loan. Eleven
million South Africans took out a loan
contributing to the total debt of US$118
billion. One of them might be your
employee. It has been revealed that an
average employee spends 20 working
hours per month on solving financial
problems and loses about six hours of
productive work.
Twenty-five out of 37 million employable
adults in South Africa have applied to lenders,
while only 10 million are officially employed.
The situation is peculiar due to the inability
of a person, who took out a considerably
big loan, to pay for minimal daily needs. To
cope with the critical situation as quickly as
possible, employees are ready to commit
fraud within the company.
Haters or those
consistently discontent
A negatively-minded employee is a ‘time
bomb’. He or she can harm companies in
the most unexpected way: leave the team
at a critical moment, move to a competitor,
pander staff to turn against management
and make employees to think of quitting.
Some personal qualities
contribute to work, some might
appear harmful. The information
security service is responsible
for detecting such risks and
controlling them; that’s what the
IS-specialists do every day. It is
conducted at three levels.
• Control of websites, sources that
employees visit; analysis of search
requests of an employee
• Control of communication, discussions in
work chats
• Control of employee activities: Files
uploading to clouds, within e-mails, to
social networks; copying to devices,
sending documents for printing, sending
confidential documents within the
corporate network, etc
But not all risk groups are monitored equally
properly. The information security service
is interested in intercepting direct threats
to the company, something that can lead
to loss of money and reputation. Illegal
activities, problems with law enforcement
agencies, theft, fraud. There will be no
immediate consequences if the violation
is out of the high-risk group. It will help to
form a comprehensive opinion when making
managerial decisions. It reminds the reverse
point system; score 10 points and fall under
the control of information security service.
Getting into a risk group may deprive an
employee of his career advancement, cancel
a transfer to another branch, etc.
The idea that drives the employer when
controlling employees is to ensure that
personal qualities don’t affect professional
ones because business isn’t run by robots
but real people. n
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