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Feature: HR Must Know When Employee Surveillance Crosses the Line   

Essentials of Internet and E-Mail Monitoring Polices
The biggest mistake in implementing electronic-monitoring software is not having a policy to back it up.

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!



Next Article: 4. Employee Internet Usage Policy
Ensure that employees don't abuse Internet usage at the workplace.

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  • Feature Contents
    Top of Feature

    1. Composing Risk-Free E-Mails
    One of the easiest and most effective ways for employers to reduce electronic risk is simply to require that employees use appropriate, businesslike language in all electronic communications

    2. Essentials of Internet and E-Mail Monitoring Polices


    3. Web Use at Work
    Wavecrest Computing has collected several white papers on aspects of appropriate Web use.

    4. Employee Internet Usage Policy
    Ensure that employees don't abuse Internet usage at the workplace.

    5. Internet and Electronic Mail Usage Policy
    Modify and use in your own organization.

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