That it is also used to provide incentives for employees and effectively rewards individuals for true merit and reward. They also point out that what is being measured is factual and hard, and that workers tend to favour such systems, they have seen too many cases of the wrong people being promoted for the wrong reasons. With the facts that the computer gathers, diligent workers can legitimately argue a case for better pay and conditions and this case does not rely upon personal opinions and personalities. Furthermore, these systems can help eliminate rampant waste, for example, employees calling long distance for private uses, a team carrying the load for an unproductive team member, identifying the theft of materials by matching the stock used with the amount processed by line workers (and discovering discrepancies). Finally, monitoring on a computer network can assist in troubleshooting and fine tuning of a system, as well as streamlining job design and fairly apportioning workloads.

However, there is also the danger of turning workers into better paid battery hens, denying them job satisfaction and eliminating the human element from their work. For example, although reservation clerks may be given an incentive to process more calls when they are being monitored, it may also eliminate any human spontaneity or friendliness in their communication. There is question of balance between the rights and expectations of employees versus the obligations and objectives of employers.

Forestor and Morrison (1990) state that clearly profits are important to the continued functioning of capitalist societies and profit itself is dependent upon competitiveness. However, just how far we are willing to proceed in the pursuit of competitiveness and profitability is a matter of judgement. For example, the use of cheap child labour was once regarded as a sensible business strategy, but now our ethical sense and labour protection laws prohibit this practice. It remains to be seen in which direction our ethical intuitions will take us in determining the nature of future employment, whether we can all be monitored in the interest of profit and accountability, or whether we shall see a renewed interest in designing jobs for people.

In addition, we need to ask what kind of precedent computer based monitoring of employees will set for other invasive practices. For example, similar arguments can be marshaled for the compulsory drug testing of key personnel such as pilots, train drivers, and power plant operators. If these people have the potential to kill thousands by accident, then do we not have the right to ensure that they are in a fit state to work? On the other hand, why not also monitor the alcohol purchases of convicted drunk drivers? This highlights the most contentious aspect of any form of computer based monitoring: it is not so much the harm it may currently be causing, but what it represents.