Email law could clear employment barriers
Email law could clear employment barriers
The new NSW draft Workplace Surveillance Bill is being touted as a bridge between the employer and employee that will demand work place respect from workers and fairer treatment by organisations.
A panel met discussed the value of this new Bill today, and the members believe that it will help to enhance the relationships within the work place because it will disperse the cloud of understanding that exists at the moment.
Clearswift and Clayton Utz hosted the business briefing on "Balancing Employer Liability and Employees' Rights'", to help businesses deal with security and privacy issues associated with electronic communication.
The panel talked about the risks and obligations about monitoring employee use of email and the Internet, loss of productivity, legal liability, confidentiality breaches and employees' rights to privacy in the workplace.
Peter Croft, the managing director of Clearswift Asia Pacific, said: "Privacy, intellectual property and security issues around monitoring of electronic communication, make it hard for businesses to balance employer liability and employee rights."
David Russell, the senior policy adviser at the Australian Industry Group, added: "Employers monitor employees for three purposes: unlawful activity by the employee; activity which is contrary to the interests of the employer and to monitor employee performance.
"However, industrial tribunals are wise to staff being dismissed solely based on email and Internet misuse. An employee is likely to win in an industrial tribunal if the basis of that person's dismissal is based on the apparent abuse of Internet and email."
Alison Peters, deputy assistant secretary of the NSW Labor Council said: "People like to be treated with dignity and respect whether they are at work or not. Electronic monitoring of staff can be counter productive where employees don't feel they've been treated fairly and reasonably. For example, a recent case involved a member of staff from an organisations being found guilty of bullying inside the work place because he harassed somebody with too many emails.
"Organisations need to be very aware of how to deal with their email and Internet policy. The consequences of a bad policy or no policy can cause lack of trust, absenteeism, bad health, disputation, increase staff turnover, encourage legal challenges and attract risks to the company's reputation.
"However, the benefits of a progressive policy could produce better trust with employees resulting in higher productivity, lesser negative health effects, improved organisation by employees (such as paying bills online) and better cooperation between unions and management. In addition, real consultation engenders ownership and greater compliance.
"A good email policy is made up of a policy that needs to be known and understood by staff. It needs to be explicit about what is allowed and what is not, spells out what is logged, outlines who can access it (and for what purpose), describes how compliance will be monitored, includes the consequences of breaches, explains how the policy will be reviewed and promotes email etiquette."
The entire panel agreed that a well considered email policy would lead to stronger harmonious working relationships.
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