Employer reading emails without consent.

happyc84

Hi, The company I work for are reading emails from Employees and are taking action against some of the staff, saying that they were working from Home and not doing enough work, this is from looking at their work laptop.

Do they need to tell the staff that all activity is being monitored. They didn't complete a agreement during on-boarding so interested to see if this has happened in your work place.

Alter_ego

Shock horror - Employer supervising staff

Bradden

Monitoring work done on a company owned laptop is perfect legal but there should be a written policy.

happyc84

Thanks thats what I thought - written policy.

IMO - It come down to trust - why would you work for a company that do this. I worked for one that said they did WFH but once you were signed up - it was discouraged. within 1 week of starting.

Going back to reading your work output on your laptop - once this is started the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, what  is fair and reasonable?

Anyone been through this?

MattMattMattUK

happyc84 said:

Thanks thats what I thought - written policy.

IMO - It come down to trust - why would you work for a company that do this. I worked for one that said they did WFH but once you were signed up - it was discouraged. within 1 week of starting.

Why would an employer want to employ staff who were not doing enough work and sitting around at home with their feet up?

happyc84 said:

Going back to reading your work output on your laptop - once this is started the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, what  is fair and reasonable?

They will be looking at emails sent via administrator/delegate access, there is no genie, is is perfectly fair and reasonable.

happyc84 said:

Anyone been through this?

Some will have been, they will have either bucked their ideas up or been managed out.

Undervalued

happyc84 said:

Thanks thats what I thought - written policy.

IMO - It come down to trust - why would you work for a company that do this. I worked for one that said they did WFH but once you were signed up - it was discouraged. within 1 week of starting.

Going back to reading your work output on your laptop - once this is started the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, what  is fair and reasonable?

Anyone been through this?

It is perfectly "fair and reasonable" to have a more senior person check every bit of work a staff member produces. Indeed in some fields it is the norm. It may not be welcome and you might choose to work somewhere else (if you can find a job more to your liking) but it is not unlawful.

Savvy_Sue

We used to ask everyone to read and sign the IT policy but I'm not sure it's still happening. However, there is a whole heap of stuff available which I know staff need time to read.

Are you sure there hasn't been a generic agreement to abide by the employer's policies?

Work laptop: company property = why would you expect it to be private?

powerful_Rogue

happyc84 said:

Thanks thats what I thought - written policy.

IMO - It come down to trust - why would you work for a company that do this. I worked for one that said they did WFH but once you were signed up - it was discouraged. within 1 week of starting.

Going back to reading your work output on your the companies laptop - once this is started the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, what  is fair and reasonable?

Anyone been through this?

Slight correction.         

elsien

Work laptop. Work emails.
I would presume that the employer would be able to check those any time they wanted to.
The question is more what did the emails indicate that the employees were doing that they shouldn’t have been. 

Never put anything in the work email or any work system that you wouldn’t be completely happy for your boss to read.

DullGreyGuy

happyc84 said:

Thanks thats what I thought - written policy.

IMO - It come down to trust - why would you work for a company that do this. I worked for one that said they did WFH but once you were signed up - it was discouraged. within 1 week of starting.

Going back to reading your work output on your laptop - once this is started the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, what  is fair and reasonable?

Anyone been through this?

Its not your laptop nor is it your email... what are you using your employer's tools for that you don't want them to see?

There is a trust issue, but the trust is really broken when you start using their laptop for inappropriate things, not when they catch you doing it.

Any company of any size should have an IT policy which will include the ability for the employer to read the emails sent to/from the corporate account they give you. 

Want to email during office hours? Use your personal account on your phone!

Brie

Likely it is covered under some general IT policy "work laptops are for work only, we may monitor".  We had this warning but it was only obvious if you read  e v e r y  s i n g l e  line of the various policy documents we needed to attest to every single year.  Lots of people missed it because it's just to boring to read.  And lots of us simply ignored it (me included) on the basis that if anyone wanted to read my boring emails to my OH about what's for dinner then I really didn't want to know.