E-Mail, Internet Use, and Privacy Policies - Assignment Example

 E-Mail, Internet Use, And Privacy Policies Introduction The internet has brought major changes in the business contexts. Even though internet can play vital role in helping human resource management in performing various functions like recruiting, training and knowledge management, it also has negative sides of employee misuse of email and internet at workplaces. Internet misuse among employees and need for internet and email policies have recently become matters of debate among human resource experts and corporate managements. This report examines email use, internet use and privacy policies at an organizational workplace. The current laws regarding internet use, internet privacy and email use are also detailed in this report. This report assesses the company practices of internet and email use policies and measures that employee need to consider at workplace in order to ensure privacy in internet use. E-mail use, Internet use, and privacy policies When employees are at workplace, the main emphasis is normally given on improving the overall productivity and employee performance. E-mail and internet use among employees at workplace have created issues that it is merely a time consuming and more over there can be issues of misuse as well. Employees may share the company matters with others or through social media like twitter or facebook and this adversely affect the company. Telstra, an Australian Carrier and media company with 49000 employees, has become an example of organization that brought set of rules and regulations for employees regarding internet use (Peter Williams, July 2009). Internet policy is guidelines and instructions given to the employees regarding the use of internet facilities including surfing of the web, e-mail use, and social media and chatting etc. The main objective of internet policy is to increase employee productivity and reduce legal liabilities that may happen due to the employee misuse of internet. Noonan (2004) emphasized that an internet policy must be able to define who is allowed to access internet at workplace and what types of access are permitted (p. 34). One of the main issues related with internet is the misuse of social media like twitter.com, linkedin.com etc. according to Solis and Breakenridge (2009), public relations are ever changing and social media sites are empowering new domains of authoritative voices that should never be ignored. Social media can alter the entire media landscape because power of influence can be placed in few hands if they have goods commenting power (p. 1). Social media can create greater challenge on both Human resources management as well on the organization in general. Because, employees may access social media sites and comment on company matters that can create many issues of legal liabilities and public interest. Current laws regulating employee e-mail and internet privacy When an employer provides oral or written policy regarding any issue in the workplace including internet use or privacy issues, that policies are legally considered to be binding. The employees are legally responsible to know what are the privacy policies prevailing in the workplace (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 2010). In the law case of Smyth v Pillsbury, the employee’s termination from the job was upheld by the court, because, the employee sent messages to colleagues that were inappropriate for the workplace, though employees in the same workplace were allowed of internet and email use in the workplace (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse). There are currently few laws that regulate employee monitoring in terms of their internet use. When the employer or employees have issues regarding internet use and privacy policies, they are supposed to contact federal legislators. In any case, the fundamental legal view will be that the policies that employers have issued to the employees will be legally binding. Why do companies implement e-mail and Internet use policies? Companies need to implement email and internet use policies basically as part of its goal. The fundamental goal of any business is to achieve maximum utilization of available resources and thus to enhance increased productivity and high performance working. Employees are the human capital and they are the most valuable assets of a business. If they are better utilized, the business can achieve success by increasing the employee productivity. All the businesses try to protect company and business affairs from liabilities that may arise including those risks that are caused by employee internet misuse. Email, social media websites and other internet uses among employees, especially when they are at workplace, have been found that these cause reduce the employee productivity and it is mere time consuming. A well defined internet policy can help human resource management dismiss or terminate an employee when he or she breaches the internet policies of the company and when he creates liability through internet misuse. Personal emails that an employee receives at workplace may consume the time of employee, company resources and risk of virus transmission to the company documents or resources kept in the computers (Baker and McKenzie, 2008, p. 1118). It shows that increased use of email by employees for non-job related purposes create challenges of the company and this should be restricted through internet policies. Smith and Mazin (2004) argued that inappropriate email use by employees; computer and internet use by them are serious problems for HRM as these misuses will create hosting of legal problems for the organization. Email transmission is regarded to be a document and it is potential document that can be used against an employer in a lawsuit (p. 171). What assumptions might employees make about their privacy at work? How do these policies affect employee privacy at work? Employees are required to know about the privacy policies issued by the employer and these policies will be considered to be legally binding. Breaching of any of the policies can cause legal liabilities to him. Employees are expected not to misuse internet or email while they are at workplace and they should not share company maters or important documents with others or comment about them in social media sites like twitter or linkedin. The internet policies may affect the privacy of employees in a number of ways. The internet policy may specify what kind of emails can be received and what kinds of emails or documents can be sent from his computers. Inappropriate emails will be prohibited. Emails that contain immoral pictures or description and accessing inappropriate or immoral sites may be prohibited be the company. As part of internet policy, the company may record employees uses of internet and e-mails and all the information that are transmitted from his computer and are received to his computer will be some time recorded with specific software. This may record employees’ private matters and personal information. Conclusion Employee use of email and internet is creating challenges on both the company and HRM. The internet misuse can cause legal liabilities as well. In this changing business context, internet policy has become highly important and it can help a company litigate risks and liabilities associated with internet misuse of employees. This paper has outlined need for internet policy and explained the prevailing legal practices of internet misuse among employees in an organization. References Baker and McKenzie (2008), Australian master human resources guide, CCH Australia Noonan W. J (2004), Hardening Network Infrastructure, Illustrated Edition, McGraw-Hill Professional Smith S.A and Mazin R.A (2004), The HR answer book: an indispensable guide for Managers and human resources professionals, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn Solis B and Breakenridge D (2009), Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, FT press Williams P (July 2009), A Little Bird Told Me, Social Media, HR Monthly Read More