Seven Reasons Why Your Company Needs An E-Mail Policy
Everyone at the office thought that using the company e-mail
system to share jokes and funny stories was great fun. That is,
until one offended employee decided to sue his employer for
having helped to create a hostile work environment.
Employee access to E-mail and the Internet can help to
streamline communication among employees, and between employees
and customers. But, just like conversations or information
communicated on paper, E-mail messages have the power to create
significant liability issues for employers who fail to
adequately supervise how the medium is being used.
Here are just a few of the risks that unregulated access to
E-mail and the Internet can create:
Loss Of Proprietary Company Information: Most business owners
are extremely careful about the distribution of hard copies of
company confidential information, and take great pains to ensure
that such materials are kept secure. But, an ill-intentioned
employee can easily attach electronic copies of confidential
materials to outgoing e-mails, all from the comfort and
convenience of their own computer terminal.
Wrongful Access To Proprietary Information Of Others: Just as
your proprietary information can easily slip into the hands of
others, so too can employees tap into the confidential
information of other companies, or misuse their copyrighted or
trademarked properties. Such actions can place your company in
the direct path of charges of corporate spying or of
infringement of intellectual property rights.
Creation Of An Evidence Trail: As the Microsoft antitrust cases
clearly demonstrate, copies of E-mails are increasingly being
subpoenaed as evidence in legal cases. Seduced by the ease of
E-mail communication, many users become surprisingly candid and
may openly discuss business strategies and tactics that may come
back to haunt your company.
Contribution To A Hostile Work Environment: As we noted above,
offensive E-mail messages sent to other employees can be just as
problematic as the employee who begins every conversation with
an inappropriate joke. Unmonitored use of the corporate E-mail
system to circulate such material can land employers in hot
water for contributing to the creation of a hostile work
environment.
Potential To Alienate Customers: Employees using the company