Posted on: Sunday, August 17, 2003
Boss may be reading your office e-mail
| • | Business e-mail not always best |
By Christine L. Romero
Arizona Republic
Big Brother is reading e-mail but isn't doing nearly enough about workplace infractions, suggests a corporate e-mail consulting firm.
About half of employers nationwide monitor e-mail coming in and out, while fewer than two out of every 10 companies monitor messages between employees, reveals a recent study by the Columbus, Ohio-based American Management Association and ePolicy Institute. Only three of every 10 firms have policies about saving and deleting old e-mails.
"I think the most surprising thing about this to me is the fact that we are still seeing so few employers doing what needs to be done when it comes to e-mail retention and putting e-mail policies into place," said Nancy Flynn of the ePolicy Institute, a consulting firm that helps employers with e-mail issues.
The stakes for employers in harassment lawsuits are on the rise, Flynn said.
"E-mail today is the equivalent of DNA evidence," she said. "The chances are very high that e-mail will be subpoenaed as evidence for you or against you."
Even when companies do watch, they rarely fire employees for e-mail violations. Only two out of 10 companies nationwide have ever dismissed an employee for violating corporate e-mail policy, reports the study of more than 1,100 employers nationwide.
But if employees are violating corporate e-mail policy, it could be because they don't know any better. "Reasonably, employers should allow a certain amount of personal use," Flynn said. "The best thing you can do is set specific guidelines on how much time and when during the day and the type of communication. You have to be specific, not ambiguous."
