Inappropriate Use of Email - case study

The Organisations

Some of the firms involved in the cases below are quite large, but the implications of the following studies can relate to any company, irrespective of size or industry.

What Happened

Event 1

A lawyer at a City of London firm sent an e-mail telling friends about his girlfriend's sexual tastes. The e-mail was circulated to a small group of friends but within a week the message had been distributed to over a million people. Within two weeks, it had spanned the globe.

Event 2

A UK mobile telephone company sacked up to forty staff for downloading pornographic images from the Internet, using company systems and company time.

This in itself was an offence that warranted dismissal, however one source claimed that some even included images of severed body parts.

Event 3

A city banker wrote an e-mail describing his sexual exploits. One of the five original recipients forwarded the e-mail, and many of those who received it did the same. Hundreds of thousands of people were sent the offending article, including employees at:

• Bank of England
• Barclays
• Bloomberg
• HSBC
• Daily Telegraph
• Capital Management Group
• KPMG
• Emap

Impact

Few of these events would have had a direct financial impact on the companies involved, but there can be significant losses due to consequential and subsequent events. These events include:

• PR management of the consequences
• Wasted staff time dealing with enquiries
• Wasted system resources, including disc space and bandwidth

Lessons

Given the conversational nature of e-mail, it is almost inevitable that people use it (including work e-mail) for every purpose. Many companies tolerate reasonable personal usage, as to ban it would be impractical, and have potential legal implications. To manage this circumstance, it is essential that you:

• Inform your staff what is and is not acceptable
• Make sure everyone knows that there are circumstances when you will monitor e-mail traffic