e-mail

paranor98 · August 2006

Can an employer monitor e-mail communication that are generated though its sever (company provides employees email serices)?

NaeNae55 · August 2006

The answer is: It Depends. x0:)

We have a communications policy which states that employees have no expectation of privacy in phone calls, voice mail, email, internet usage, or any other types of communication using company equipment.

We have had this policy for years, but have not really made use of it much. It is basically in place for us to monitor if we suspect a problem. After reading about a recent court case, we decided to make a point to check out our employees' website usage at least once a year.

If we did not have this policy, however, we would not monitor any of our employee's communications. Courts will look at your policies to determine if they have an expecation of privacy.

Do you have such a policy in place? If not, you should probably get one in place ASAP.

Good luck!

Nae

SMace · August 2006

yes

bcolton · August 2006

Yes, but you need a clear policy statement to employees that the company willmonitor emails etc. Stqtement should be slong the same line as we ahve the right to go into your desk area etc.

Then you need to check emails periodically so that the only person you check isn't singled out for discipline.

Toto · August 2006

I agree there should be a policy in place, an acknowledgment form spelling out “no expectation of privacy” (covering the areas you deem appropriate, phone, email, even locked desks, etc.) signed by the ee and placed in their file, and even a pop up screen on each monitor when the ee signs on. We have it set so the ee must accept the pop up to continue signing on.

bcolton, you said “Then you need to check emails periodically so that the only person you check isn't singled out for discipline.”
I have some questions to help me address this issue if you would be so kind to share some info or even if others out there that could help me learn from their monitoring experience.

Who does the checking? I understand recording phone & storing email to protect against liability or even maximize & verify customer service but personally I get uncomfortable in just general monitoring. How does your company justify monitoring to the ees? Are you a union shop & if so how did that point go during negotiations? Are your ees allowed to occasionally use phones and email for personal communication, say during breaks or lunch? If so, what happens when the ee doing the monitoring learns info that’s covered under privacy laws? We can track web sites visited to verify ees are working and have the ability to monitor what an ee is seeing but not only do I not want to be the Web police I don’t want a non-HR person second guessing my web site visits or looking at emails that may contain info on or to other ees.
There are additional questions challenging my few brain cells but I’ll stop at these. Like I implied on the MySpace topic discussion, electronic media can be a great asset (for example getting help from other professionals) but it can also create new problems to cope with. Thank you for any feedback.

Dutch2 · August 2006

I randomly select the names of X number of ee's each month. Our CIO pulls up their accounts and checks for anything out of line. Our ee's are required to sign a computer use agreement before we give them access to anything. Most of the time there is no problem, but we have terminated a few for misuse of the company's system. Such as spending way to much time in personal emails, both inside and outside of the company, and content of the emails.

marc · August 2006

This does not sound like a question coming from an HR person.

e-mail

Comments