E-Mail monitoring

[ManagerJay]

I have an employee who has been given the unrewarding task of monitoring corporate e-mail. He was doing fine with the task, reporting what should be reported, etc. until last week when several of the e-mails started containing comments directed toward him.

Comments such as, "Does your mother know your doing this," "Make sure management sees this," etc.

How can I help this individual to deal with this?



Jay

 

[JuanDelegator]

As an Exchange Admin for a large company....

Tell them to shut the hell up and charge them for using business resources for personal use. That will get their attention.

Reading their email, without a good cause is not good. Nonetheless, that is the property of the company and so it is not PRIVATE like most moronic AOL using end users THINK.

Of ALL mail in my company, do you know what the number one outside destination for mail is? AOL.COM.

How many businesses use AOL as a service provider? I work for a very LARGE company, larger than you can imagine, and most of the monkeys working in my company use email for PERSONAL reasons and not business resons. Ya, tell the end users to get private email, maybe even hotmail. Hotmail/Earthling/Yahoo.com are also in the top 10 for email to the firewall.

WASTE of company resources...

Juan Delegator

 

[perkyk]

Although email monitoring may be legal, is it ethical?

perky_k@coldbear.com

 

[DonQuichote]

See thread717-283454 for a discussion about this.

 

[SteveTheGeek]

Juan,
Monkeys?
-Steve

 

[Luckyfour]

It sounds like your purpose in email monitoring is to stop people giving out information to the competition. Of course, if they really wanted to they could do it from their home computers anyway and some employees can be nasty when they're unhappy with their employers. Not working in the industry, but actually in mental health, I'd suggest letting the employees know that their email may be monitored as you have. Then, I'd fade into the background and only confront those who are giving out info to the competition or something else major. To some degree, it's best for those offending employees to actually forget that their email is being monitored. So, I'd let all those jokes, etc go by and only use the information if there is very serious abuse. I think a balance is needed (the occasional laugh or two at work) which is good for one's mental health versus being "big brother is watching" which is not great for anyone.

 

[johnny99]

Now a few weeks later when I again read what JuanDelegator wrote I still can't help thinking:
I don't think I would like to work together with you. You and I would have a very hard time working together.

By the way I realy don't think that size matters, also not when we talk about companies.

Many years ago I worked some years for IBM and at that time I think IBM had more then 400.000 people working for them and I still don't think they spend time monitoring emails or phonecalls. I don't know if a company of 400.000 is big to you, but again it realy doesn't matter.

2 years ago when I started in the company I work for now we talked a lot about internet web access. Some VP's didn't want that people had access to anything else then what the VP's wanted them to see. They didn't want people spending the company time on the internet.

I basicly said that I realy can't see why this should be an IT problem. This is a management problem. It realy doesn't matter if people waist time on the internet, the phone or reading a book.

If you can't trust the people working for you, find some you can trust.

/johnny

 

[Msharkey]

We do web monitoring in our office via software. The software has a weekly download that places websites into differenet categories, like sex, shopping, computing, etc. This has cut down on the surf during core business hours.

A printable report is available to see who is out surfing the web. We do open the pipe for more sites during lunch and after hours for employees to surf around on. The basis stuff is blocked 24/7 like race, hate, crime, porn site.

This software is Surf Control.

They also make software to monitor emails for key words. This is a user set up program that allows you capture copies of possibly offending email.

Just some thoughts.

Matt

 

[SCPCGuy]

As one who has been there in your employee's seat, here's what I would do:
1) Make it very clear to all employees, coming from company management, that email monitoring is being done as a result of company policy implemented by the company's owners, not as a wish to pry by an IT employee.
2) If any monitored employees continue to complain, have the company's top manager have a chat with the offenders, making it very clear that the company will not tolerate their abuse of the IT employee who is tasked with the unpleasant job.
3) Remind people in writing of the company's email policy.
4) Try to instill a sense of light-heartedness in the IT employee; help him to have someone to vent to about the content he's seeing. Help him deal with the occasional negative comment directed at him.
5) Make sure he knows he is supported by you and the company's management. The worst thing that can happen is to place him in the front of the battle and then desert him; happened to me--I turned to look for support from my bosses, and all I saw was their backs as they beat a hasty retreat over the horizon. Don't do that.
6) Consider if their are any more automated ways of accomplishing the same goal (e.g., Brightmail, Postini, etc.), reducing dependence on human subjectiveness.

 

[ManagerJay]

We were almost in the same boat with management turning their backs after directing us to do this. However, finally, an e-mail was reviewed and forwarded to the appropriate manager for action, and, to make a long story short, action was taken within 20 minutes to stop the offender. This happened shortly before Christmas.

Since that time, there have been no more problems.



Jay

 

[SVL]

Heh, very imressive thread for me. In Russia, where I am from, one of the best ways to make your employees hate you and your company, is to monitor e-mails and IM messaging. It is not illegal, but very dangerous to the company to take such actions -it will immediately ruine the morale of the staff. The ethical principles there differ from US ones.

So my opinion is -if you are aware of someone inside stealing your informational property or sending offending e-mails, for example, have automatic filters, but do not have anyone reading people`s mail.

 

[chiph]

SVL -
No one denies that employees don't like having their mail read (even in the US). But often there's the case of one bad employee spoiling it for everyone else. They spend their time surfing bad sites, or chatting with their friends on IM instead of working. The company then needs to have proof of this activity so they can fire that employee. This requirement varies from state to state ... North Carolina is an "at will" state, so I could be fired at any time for any reason (i.e., at the will of the employer). But in states like California and Massachusetts you need proof first before firing someone.

So that's why all the interest in email monitoring, filtering, etc. software.

Chip H.

 

[pmrankine]

My colleague's and I have been discussing this subject as well. One slant on e-mail use is to compare it to use of any other company property since the computer you use, the software and the email account are all property of the company NOT the individual. It's usually accepted that companies will have rules stating e.g. that employees should not use the telephone for personal use or take items that are company property - everything from pens to PCs. However, everyone and their granny seem to be horrified at the thought of their e-mail's being monitored - why? - it's company time and company equipment being used and not to forget that, despite disclaimers that the email may not reflect company views, the e-mail is sent using a company e-mail address and may reflect badly on them. Usually, most rules are enforced with a little common sense i.e. as long as there are no offending e-mail's and not interfering with your job then they'll not bother you but it's worth bearing in mind (or reminding those who think they should not be monitored) that technically your employer could discipline you for taking a pen or notepad - it is after all stealing.

Anyway, I'm rambling a little but just a thought - if you can make sense of it