Employee email is open to employer eyes

Recent outrage at Harvard University over employers searching staff email comes as a timely reminder that company email accounts aren’t private.

Shannon Green reports for www.law.com that faculty members at the university were angered when they discovered administrators had secretly searched the email accounts of some staff hunting for media leaks.

Most employers are within their rights to search employee email, as outlined in policy documents like employee handbooks. So what is the best way to go about it?

Littler Mendelson partner Adam Fiss says email monitoring software – which makes it much faster to search emails – is more readily available, but the take-up rate isn’t particularly high yet. He says employers tend to only read employee emails in response to an issue that arises.

Fiss is in agreement with other experts that it’s not always appropriate to inform an employee in advance that their email will be searched but it is good practice to let them know after the fact to demonstrate transparency. It also presents a good opportunity to refresh all employees on company policy regarding email privacy.