usinesses throughout the country are clamoring for electronic-monitoring software, but the biggest mistake they make in implementing the technology is not having a policy to back it up.

    "The cleanest approach is to notify employees up front, put the policy in the handbook, and keep records of how often you remind employees they are being monitored," says attorney Wayne Hersh, a partner specializing in labor and employment law at Berger Kahn in Irvine, California. "Employees have a much harder time suing successfully for violated privacy rights if they’ve been notified."

    Nancy Flynn, author of The ePolicy Handbook (AMACOM, 2001) and founder of the ePolicy Institute in Columbus, Ohio, agrees, and adds that employers must have a training program in place to educate employees about electronic liabilities and the importance of compliance. "The only way to reduce workplace risk is through training. You can’t expect all of your employees to understand and comply with policies without an ongoing training program," Flynn says.

    Here are some guidelines to follow in establishing electronic-monitoring policies:

• Ban e-mail language that could negatively affect your organization’s business relationships, damage your corporate reputation, or trigger a lawsuit. Ban sexist or racist language; ban jokes. Employees should try to keep e-mail language gender-neutral.

• Include corporate guidelines such as how you want employees to refer to the company, how to sign off, and what kinds of salutations to use. Banish emoticons. That kind of visual shorthand has no place in business writing.

• Ban inappropriate Web sites -- usually those that are sexually explicit or violent, or contain otherwise objectionable images or language.

• To conserve bandwidth, outlaw Net surfing for personal information, game-playing online, chat rooms, gambling, shopping, and any other electronic activity not directly related to professional duties. (Many employers do allow some personal use of the Web during lunchtime.)

• Prohibit employees from posting or transmitting material that is obscene, hateful, harmful, malicious, threatening, hostile, abusive, vulgar, defamatory, profane, or racially, sexually, or ethnically objectionable.

Workforce, February 2002, p. 42 -- Subscribe Now!