Internet and E-mail Policies

Do you have an Internet/E-mail Policy?  I used to say it is unnecessary.  Not anymore.

 You don’t have (nor do you need) a policy telling your employees that reading Cosmo or Motor Trend on work time is improper.  You don’t need a policy telling your employees not to write letters to their Aunt Minnie on work time.  No employee will argue with this principle.  (If your employee doesn’t agree, you might want to replace him/her!)

 Surfing the Internet and sending/receiving personal e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging, Facebooking and other activity on social networking sites is no different than reading a magazine or writing a letter.  It is stealing time.  Stealing time is no different than stealing from the employer’s cash box:  it’s just more subtle. 

 The ease in which it can be done makes it much more prevalent.  The difficulty for employers is that it is hard to tell if someone is using their computer for personal reasons.  The employee is sitting at their desk, typing away.  The only way you could know that they were wasting time would be to be able to view their monitor or have monitoring software in place.  Fortunately, such software is a lot more widespread and economical than it used to be.

 In my view, an Internet/E-mail policy will do four things.  First, it will explain the obvious principles above and encourage the employees to respect the philosophy that they are being paid to work, not waste time. 

 Secondly, it will explain that what happens on work time and on work computers is the employer’s business.  That means that there is NO privacy in what is stored on their computer, where they go on the Internet and the content of their e-mails.  Monitoring software can even allow you to see e-mails sent when they log on to their personal web-based e-mail.  Once you make it clear that there is no privacy, you can prevent any allegation that you have intercepted a private communication (which is a criminal offence).  Once they realize that you can see everything they do, they will be less likely to waste your time.

Thirdly, it will set out some guidelines on using e-mail.  The informal nature of e-mail is that some people write things in an e-mail that they would never put on letterhead.  I tell people to write every letter and e-mail as if a judge is going to read it in a future dispute.  That usually gets the point across and the e-mail is more professional and polished. 

Finally, and most importantly, the policy will make it clear to the employees that stealing time will be treated as seriously as stealing money:  it’s going to eventually get the person fired for cause.