ajcjobs > BlogBreak > Archives > 2008 > March > 26 > Entry
The do’s and don’ts of using company electronics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When email hit the scene big time, I met an IT person in a Federal agency where I was working who referenced an email I had sent earlier that week. I knew I had not sent it to him so needless to say, I was more than a little shocked. Big Brother was alive and well and still is.
While you may not land in prison for sending jokes to your friends it is helpful to know your company’s policy about technology privacy.
Can your company let you go for using their technology for your own personal use? Yes, they can. According to a recent American-Management Association/ePolicy Institute survey, 84 percent of employers had policies governing workers’ personal e-mail use and one half of employers said they have fired workers for misusing the Internet or e-mail at work. The main reason for this is their fear of liability. Emails, for instance can be subpoenaed by the court.
And while you may not be caught in the act like the Peachtree City police chief was recently, (he was arrested for participating in adult chatrooms/pedophila using the company/city laptop while at home).
It makes sense to know your company’s policy and use caution in what you view and send.
Does anyones company have some looser rules about conducting personal business on company time? I have heard about some organizations that limit personal usage to certain times of the day.
With the lines between work and personal time blurred, can there be solutions about personal technology use that are effective and legal?
Comments
By Michael LoBue
March 27, 2008 10:58 AM | Link to this
I find it really a shame that so many companies have policies about the behavior of their employees rather than about results or outcomes that the employees were hired to generate in the first place.
Organizational leaders have apparently not realized that the employees they hire and then provide a computer and Internet connection to are not last century’s “line workers”. They use their brains to acquire, manipulate and associate data and information to either make a decision or pass knowledge on to someone else who is going to make decisions — the fact of the matter is, as human beings we can “schedule” that kind of high quality mental output all the time. Sometimes the mind needs free itself of some personal email before it can take care of the organization’s knowledge work.
BTW, this post is not by a “frustrated worker” but by a 15-year business owner who hires adults, treats them like adults and guess what, the employees act like adults!
By Sjb
March 31, 2008 1:38 PM | Link to this
Mr. Lobue -
You have to understand - almost every business or corporation has IT Poliices that even locks out and/or forbids the reading and replying of private e-mails.
You are a business owner - now imagine that the people you hire spend a lot of time reading e-mails (and god forbid) doing something that causes serious legal issues(Porn on-line, child porn, etc). You would be SERIOUSLY BURNED.
I have an IT background. Try to see it from an IT Pros point-of-view. You have to make sure that harmful elements don’t get through and screw up a network - or a lot of people won’t get work done, or even worse, it takes time to clean-up machines that were infected with infected e-mails or bad web-sites. THAT’s WHY THERE ARE POLICIES as these.
Another reason - LIABILITY. NO ONE SHOULD REALLY READ PERSONAL E-MAIL ON COMPANY TIME ANYWAY, BUT THEY DO IT. People should wait until they get home do read private e-mails, shop(yes they do e-bay on company time). That’s why servers LOCK OUT certain websites to prevent this.
“the mind can free itself” by taking a break, doing it on your lunch hour, using your I-phone, BlackBerry or other Personal PDA-PHone to read your e-mail and surf the web. NOT ON COMPANY TIME.
Mr. LoBue, you have to understand that anyone who reads their e-mail (hotmail, etc) is subject to learn that NOTHING Is PERSONAL - and NO ONE SHOULD EVER READ/WRITE E-mails using a COMPANY’s e-mail address or tools. IF they are, their DAYS ARE NUMBERED, or that IT DEPARTMENT ISN’T REALLY DOING its job. It boils down to LEGAL LIABILITY - now that by law, companies must deep messages INDEFINETLY. Things like this have come close to bitting us in the behind - which is why we had to crack down on it (suspensions, terminations and warnings).
SO, it is about both following POLICY and curbing BEHAVIOR. Lawsuits have happened. E-mails have/do/will get subpoenaed. These “Adults” knew the score when they were hired. The internet and e-mail for a company are TOOLS for completing tasks and communication essential for the functioning of a business. Personal use is “limited” or not allowed at all.