Protect your company over email abuse

Problems of email

The very nature of email and the way users see it increases the risk for companies. Nobody would write an offensive or sexually explicit letter put it in an envelope and post it without seriously thinking about what they were saying and to whom but the more informal nature of email means that it is possible to write something abusive or libellous without thinking and just press send.

And this can be compounded by the email being forwarded to all and sundry as several women have found to their cost with their sex lives paraded across the world, and finally ending up in the newspapers. This can reflect badly on their employers. UK law firm Norton Rose found this out the hard way when two employees originated the "Claire Swire" email, a sexually explicit email that ended up being read by more than 10 million people around the world. In this case it could have been especially damaging to the firm's reputation as it was a law firm and the employees in question were lawyers. You can see the press release the firm ended up issuing here.

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Email harassment

The tone of emails is much freer - more like a conversation than a letter and this can lead writers into temptation. It's not just the emails that your staff write that can be troublesome. If they circulate jokes - particularly racist or sexist jokes - you could find yourself facing a discrimination case. In emails it is difficult to understand the "tone of voice" because it has none of the visual clues of a conversation it is easy for a recipient to be offended where no offence was intended.

In the US, Chevron settled a case filed by four female employees for $2.2 million. The employees alleged that sexually harassing emails sent through the company email system caused a threatening work environment. One of the sexually offensive messages was a "joke" sheet titled "reasons why beer is better than women". And in January 2001 Cable & Wireless in Ireland suspended 24 employees for sending "lewd, racist and sexist jokes" on the company email system.

One defence an employer would have if an employee took them to court over racial or sexual harassment in emails would be to show that they took all reasonable practicable steps to prevent employees from committing discriminatory acts.

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Pornography

A number of City banks brought in the lawyers after discovering that employees were downloading porn and circulating it. Sternly worded letters had no effect so sackings became the only option. In particular what the city institutions were most worried about was that the pornography was being sent outside the company and may be intercepted and reflect badly on the company. It's not just the City firms either phone company Orange dismissed 30 employees for downloading pornography from the internet and motor manufacturer Ford suspended 3 workers for downloading porn from the internet onto the company computer system.

If you think it doesn't happen at work think again. According to a survey done by NFO Worldwide 70% of all internet porn traffic occurs during a 9-5pm workday. It might be your computers that these porn seekers are using.

There have already been several industrial tribunal cases with employees being fired for downloading or circulating porn who have claimed unfair dismissal. In once case the tribunal ruled "that the mere use of the internet for unauthorised purposes would not ordinarily justify summary dismissal but in the case in front of them the nature of the pictures was so objectionable as to amount to gross misconduct" - the pictures in the case included some which involved sex acts with animals.

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Confidentiality

Email makes it really easy for employees to breach confidentiality. More often than not this can be completely accidental - who hasn't at some time sent an email to the wrong person. But it can also be deliberate. A Borland employee used the company's email system to send out confidential information to competitor Symantec, his new employer. The secrets included product design specifications, sales data and information about a prospective contract for which both companies were competing. The employee and recipient were both charged with trade secret theft.

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Productivity at work

Companies need to remember that while employees are surfing the net and sending jokes they are not doing the work they are paid to. Workers spend an average of 21 hours online at the office vs. an average of 9.5 hours at home and in that 21 hours you can be sure that some of it is personal time. Look at these results from some surveys over the last couple of years:

No-one is suggesting that staff should be made to work every second of every day - people make personal phone calls, take fag breaks, make a cup of coffee, but the subtle thing about cyberslacking is that most people appear to be working when they are not. You might consider whether you want to keep track to ensure that employees are not exceeding reasonable expectations.

Amy Neo, a solicitor at Bird & Bird warns: "Without a policy in place, employers may find it increasingly difficult to show that they were justified in disciplining or dismissing an employee for abuse of email or the Internet at work. For example, if an employee has not been specifically informed that surfing the Internet at work is prohibited, and is dismissed for spending excessive time surfing, it will be harder for an employer to show that they acted reasonably in terminating the employment."

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Monitoring

Some companies monitor email and internet usage extremely carefully. For example, one large insurance company picks a day at random each month and prints off and reads a copy of every email coming into and going out of the company. Other companies use email filtering.

The first step is to set up an email and internet policy. The law does not require an employer to formulate an email/internet policy but it is the sensible option. It should make very clear what is and what is not permissible. And also make clear what monitoring will take place - so no-one can say they were not warned. Make all employees aware of the policy.

Amy Neo says "An email/Internet policy makes each employee aware of what cyberuse is permitted at work and when it is permitted. It allows an employer to notify its employees of the behaviour expected of them and also sets out the sanctions for misuse of the email and the Internet. Not only does a policy introduce a clear code of conduct, but it also overcomes a common misconception amongst employees that use of the company's email system and internet access for personal reasons is private. Under recent legislation, an employer is also required to notify an employee that emails may be monitored and a policy provides an ideal method for such notification."

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Setting up an email policy

When setting up the policy you should consider your position on:

Having an email and internet policy will protect your firm in several ways.

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