When e-mail comes back to haunt you
“Employees are often genuinely shocked when a casual e-mail comes back to haunt them, especially as evidence in a lawsuit,” says Andrea Bernard, a partner in employment law and litigation at Warner Norcross & Judd in Grand Rapids, Mich. To avoid problems, it’s helpful for companies to have a written e-mail policy, writes Anne Fisher in her May 8 Ask Annie column. Does your company have a formal, written e-mail policy? How detailed is it? Do you follow it or ignore it? Do you ever see inappropriate e-mails come by your desk?
In my opinion when something illegal is happening within a company regarding a specific or multiple employees that person or people have every right in my opinion to take that information and seek legal advice, especially when that information damages an employees reputation which could destroy the chance of obtaining a better position in their career.
Some companies are just blatantly corrupt, i’ve worked for companies like that, and honestly in the end they deserved to be sued by customers and employees for their negligence and illegal abuse towards customers and employees.
You seem focused on the “Human” elements of an email policy. Another common way to shield a company from legal trouble is to mandate data destruction of anything you are not legally required to keep long before any trouble arises.
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Anne Fisher, Fortune magazine senior writer, answers career-related questions and offers helpful advice for business professionals. Sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
This is a no-brainer! Do not put into writing anything that you wouldn’t say aloud and publicly! While I have been lulled into thinking “nobody knows what I write except me and (the recipient)”, I am rudely awakened and brought back to reality with stories such as this one.
It is no longer personal or private after you press the SEND button! From that point forward, it becomes public information (or proprietary information). Don’t do it!