Electronic media policy is essential

According to a recent survey sponsored by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute, monitoring of employee use of electronic media in the workplace continues to rise. Some of the survey findings include:

• 65% of companies use software to block connections to inappropriate websites. 
• 96% block access to adult sites, 61% to game sites, 50% to social networking sites, 40% to entertainment sites, 27% to shopping and auction sites and 21% to sports sites. 
• 18% use URL blocks to stop employees from visiting external blogs. 
• 45% track content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. 43% store and review computer files. 
• 12% monitor the blogosphere to learn what is being written about the company while 10% monitor social networking sites. 
• 43% monitor email; 73% use technology tools to automatically monitor email while 40 assign an individual to manually review email. 

Companies should have a technology use policy in place with signed acknowledgments from each employee. These policies should clearly state that all electronic communications are subject to monitoring, that employees should have no expectation of privacy with regard to those communications, and that employees consent to any monitoring conducted by the company.

This blog post is provided by Allen Miller and Business Advantage International. For assistance in dealing with human resources issues including organization effectiveness, training, compensation, and compliance, call Allen at 801.444.9919.