This time it centered on her use of a personal e-mail account for business purposes in lieu of one provided (and preserved) by the U.S. State Department during her recent tenure as Secretary of State. While the merits of the dispute may be debated until the presidential election in 2016, the issue provides timely reminders for members of the workforce about their rights vis-à-vis their employers’ e-mail accounts.
And it’s a simple lesson: employees basically have no rights when it comes to using work e-mail for personal use, and need to toe the company line even when using it for legitimate business purposes.
Companies have the legal right to monitor everything and anything an employee does on one of its corporate computers, including any type of email or Internet activity and whether or not staffers send company documents (read “property”) to their home e-mail accounts.
Particularly in instances where employers suspect misuse of a company computer, they may very well monitor activity. Abuse of electronic communications is not uncommon. According to an American Management Association survey found that 28% of employers had fired workers over e-mail misuse, where a separate 30% terminated personnel for excessive Internet use or other violations of firms’ electronic use policies.
The moral of the story: employees should read – and heed – those policies for their own good.