Employee privacy

http://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com/small-business-articles/workplace-searches-prompt-privacy-invasion-dot-dot-dot-485
The above link is to an article that was written in 2003 by William S. Hubbartt who is the president of a small business in St. Charles, IL that specializes in employee handbooks and and policies. However, I think the article is still applicable today. He tells the story of an employee who was forced to strip in a rest room in front of a customer because the customer complained that the employee stole their money. This infringed on the employee's privacy rights and she sued the company and won. Obviously, probably anyone reading that story was as outraged as I was and looking back on it I hope the employer realized their mistake. However, in the situation the employer probably thought that they were doing the right thing for the customer who was very likely irate and accusing the employee of stealing. There is a fine line of protecting an employee's privacy and investigating accusations that might be made. What if you suspect a pharmacy tech is stealing medications from your pharmacy but you need to catch them in the act to prove it? Do you search their locker? Can you search their smock pockets? You need to protect your business, but you also have to respect your employee's privacy. What if the employee isn't taking the drugs and now you have accused them of something horrible. Most likely they are going to be angry and want to take action. There are more laws in place governing this difficult issue, but I can see the need to protect the employee's privacy while also seeing the frustrating position this could put an employer or manager in. There is also the issue of employee privacy on the computer vs. monitoring to make sure employees are also doing their work which I found a funny YouTube rap for at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCrV5Eg46I