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Pornography

MariebMarieb 2 Posts
in HR & Employment Law Vote Up0Vote Down
I am new to the Employers Forum. Despite several years of HR experience, a new issue has developed that I do not have experience in. I observed one of our employees viewing pornographic photos via company email. It was by chance that I observed this. While my first step will be to remove email access, I am not sure how to proceed with disciplinary action. Our company policy addresses sexual harrassment, however I was the only one to observe and this was by accident. Any assistance with this would be appreciated.

Marie
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  • 7 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • HRsageHRsage 409 Posts
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    Does your company policy address internet and computer usage regarding this? If not you should probably develop one quickly. As for this person I would address the situation immediately with them. You might not have been the only one to accidently view it. There is ablsolutely no place for this in the workplace and I would either terminate or place on final warning depending on your policies. Just my thoughts.
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  • MariebMarieb 2 Posts
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    We have a policy that states that computers, e-mail system, etc. are intended for business use only and employees are advised that usage will be monitored, although I am not sure that this is being done on a regular basis. We do allow for disciplinary action if employees are in violation of this policy.

    We will revise our policy to include this type of activity ASAP. Thank you for your input.


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  • neveradullneveradull 194 Posts
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    [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-18-03 AT 05:13PM (CST)[/font][p]If the employee was surfing the internet for pornography discipline is appropriate. If it was an email I would talk to her/him about it as an individual cannot always control what is sent. Even surfing the internet for legit reasons can sometimes bring up the most unusual web pages. Was he/she frothing at the mouth or was the porn quickly deleted? I definitely need a week end away. Strange things seem to happen during a full moon.
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  • AprilShowersAprilShowers 156 Posts
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    I agree with neveradull. Investigate a little further before you begin the discipline process. Some crude emails can be hidden behind what seems to be harmless email, I like to think the best of employees and give them the benefit of the doubt (at least at first!) Good luck!

    April
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  • scottorrscottorr 599 Posts
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    I also agree that you should investigate rather than assume the employee wanted or requested the pornography. If an employee's e-mail is posted anywhere on the internet, some internet pornography sites have what is called spider software that will find that e-mail address and send their ads which can include pictures. We had that happen here and after our investigation and a team of IT people we found that our ee did nothing wrong. We are now using a spam blocker which for now seems to be working. (at least until they figure a way to get around it). We now also have a word scanner that blocks any messages that contain certain words or langauge.
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  • HRsageHRsage 409 Posts
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    Of course it should be investigated further. I failed to mention that in my first post, I just assumed that would be the first course of action as it usually is. There could be a slight possibility that it was accidental. If he says that it was accidental, remind him that it will be monitored and then see if it "accidentally" happens again. I know, I know, just call me a cynic.
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  • dodanieldodaniel 11 Posts
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    Even if you were the only one to see the ee viewing the xrated site, go to your computer department and have them pull up a history of the ee's email address. This will show you the sites that the ee has been looking at and you will have a paper trail to present to the ee.

    Then look at your internet policy if you have one. Follow the guidelines of this policy. In our case we fire immediately!

    Hope this helps.
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