You might not want the company snooping into your e-mails, but electronic surveillance seems to be working.
It’s a creepy feeling to think someone might be reading your e-mails. Even if you’re using the company e-mail system for legitimate business rather than sending mushy-grams to your true love, the idea that someone is monitoring your missives just reeks of Orwellian control.
An increasing number of companies, however, are monitoring employees’ e-mails for a good reason and with impressive results. It seems this invasion of workers’ personal space might reduce companies’ risks for financial scandal.
The “Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal” is an online resource for information and advice about how companies can comply with the law aimed at rebuilding the integrity of corporations in the wake of Enron and similar scandals. Sarbanes-Oxley raises all kinds of questions about what is private, privileged information and what must be disclosed. The bottom line is most companies are bending over backward to make sure they don’t even appear to be corrupt.
One of the results of this tightening-up is a closer watch over employees and the information they share in the course of doing business. Thus, one survey found that 93 percent of companies have formal electronic communication retention and review policies. So, for example, if you forward the link to this article to a co-worker, your company probably knows it.
The same survey – self-servingly conducted by Fortiva, a company that provides secure e-mail archiving – also found that of those companies with such policies, 63 percent said that e-mail surveillance has improved their ability to see exposure to risks as a result of employee communications. As a result, 26 percent of companies said they have fired employees as a result of information they discovered through e-mail surveillance.
Companies seem to be achieving the intended results. Employees appear to be more aware of the risks inherent in e-mail and subsequently are monitoring themselves. Eighty-three percent of companies say they do not prohibit employees from sending or receiving personal e-mails on the companies’ systems. Yet, 79 percent of businesses believe e-mail monitoring is deterring employees from sending or receiving e-mails that violate corporate rules and policies.
I’m a proponent of open communication in the workplace. It’s essential that employees have the freedom and opportunity to communicate candidly without fear of reprisal – even if the communication is critical of company policies or specific people. Also, business leaders must be free to “open the books” to employees and share all the information people need in order to do their jobs.
With freedom comes responsibility. Employees owe it to their employers to know the rules when it comes to the kinds of information that can be sent and received using company systems. Employees must protect proprietary information and they must feel empowered to “blow the whistle” when they see something that doesn’t look right.
In the end, communication of every kind and at every level is a powerful tool for business. The fear of Sarbanes-Oxley and the resulting surveillance by companies shouldn’t deter it.
