In recent surveys, it is highlighted the importance for employers of having a well-drafted email use policy and internet use policy. Most employers take email use policy and internet access policy for important business reasons ranging from employee productivity reasoning to preventing hostile work environments.
A survey on Email Rules, Policies and Practices by American Management Association revealed that 75 percent of organizations in their survey had written policies concerning e-mail. More than one third of the respondents in the survey revealed that they had experienced problems related to their e-mail systems including having their computer systems disabled for a time, having their businesses interrupted for a time, and having computer viruses enter their systems through e-mail. The average respondent in this survey reported spending about 107 minutes on e-mail every day—about 25 percent of the workday. Ninety percent of respondents in the survey reported sending and receiving personal e-mail at work, but the vast majority stated that personal e-mail amounts to less than 10% of all their e-mail correspondence. Eighty-six percent of respondents claimed e-mail makes them more efficient at work.
Employee’s misuse of internet access has raised serious business concern among employers. This conclusion has been revealed in other several surveys as well. Employees who use internet for non work related purpose at office such as analyzing their investment portfolios, viewing pornography, locating friends, making personal travel arrangements, doing unacceptable behavior in the workplace, following sports teams, and shopping for merchandise. Clearly the use of e-mail and Internet access by employees in the workplace demands well-designed email use policy and internet access policy to prevent the affliction of work time and to minimize other business and legal risks.
Even though there are some reasonable business ground reasons for employers to cautiously make email use policy and internet access policy, yet most of employees do not engage in misbehave or abuse the privilege of using the employers’ communications equipment. Furthermore, employers benefit from employees’ enhanced productivity made possible by e-mail and Internet access in the workplace. Additionally, employees have legal rights related to the workplace that need to be considered when employers draft e-mail and Internet policies. In this article, we will help employers draft and enforce e-mail and Internet use policies that achieve an appropriate balance between preventing abuses and protecting employees’ rights in the workplace.
Employer’s policy for internet use policy and email use policy are central and essential workplace management tool. Whenever the policy is properly drafted, consistently enforced and effectively communicated among employee, it will made some good purpose in bellow are.
1. The policy purpose enables the employer to establish guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the workplace involving the use of e-mail and Internet access. An employer’s email use policy and internet access policy should notify employees of acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the workplace.
2. Another advantage of an effective policy purpose is that it may prevent losses to the employer that may result from employees deliberately or carelessly misusing e-mail and Internet access. These losses may include misappropriations of intellectual property and employer liability for civil damages or criminal sanctions.
3. An effective email use policy and internet use policy helps an employer achieve legal compliance with a myriad of workplace laws that protect employee rights and restrict the employer’s and employees’ actions related to e-mail and Internet systems, provided the employer follows the policy purpose, applies it fairly, and trains its managers on implementation of the policy.
4. Damage from virus infection, worms spreading and trojan infection could cost employer severely. Office or company production may close down for several days to clean malicious infection. Not to mention the company image will be badly hurt if the virus is spreading to client, customer or vendor originating from current employee email. Such email use policy and internet use policy are known to prevent or minimize in such accident.
5. Damage from illegal software installation download from internet by employee. Participation in pirated software bulletin board and even spreading the software by downloading from that site and install in several company’s PCs. Employer may be sued by the authority or the software company involved for that illegal software conducts.
6. Finally, an effective email use policy and internet use policy reserves the employer’s property and management rights, including the right to monitor the employer’s equipment and systems for a variety of business reasons and the right to discipline or terminate employees for violating the policy.
