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Employees admit to sending, receiving, and searching for nonwork-related information on their personal computers at work, according to an American Management Association and Vault.com survey. While many employers acknowledge it is nearly impossible for workers to keep work and home lives totally separate, companies are feeling the negative bottom-line effects and legal consequences of personal e-mails and surf time. Some companies are turning to software to monitor employee computer use to improve productivity and avoid potential legal problems-such as employees sharing company trade secrets or offensive jokes. Ways to avoid creating reasonable expectations of privacy include: 1. Require everyone to register computer passwords with the network administrator. 2. Delete e-mails on a routine and timely basis. 3. Prohibit employees from loading their own software onto the system.

A few months ago, an attempt to render e-mail "private" went as far as the governor's desk in California. Both legislatures passed the bill, but Gov. Gray Davis vetoed it.

It was a close call for employers already losing employee time to frowned-upon personal e-mails, not to mention the estimated $1.1 billion annual loss from employees using the Internet for personal use on company time, according to SurfWatch.com.

Employees admit to sending, receiving, and searching for nonwork-related information, according to an American Management Association (AMA) and Vault.com survey. The survey reports nearly 70% of employees admit to visiting adult-oriented sites or sending jokes to co-workers and friends at work; 64% have sent politically incorrect e-mails or jokes from work; 57% say surfing reduces their productivity; 37% constantly use the computer for personal use; and 29% have been caught surfing nonworkrelated sites.

And while many employers acknowledge it's nearly impossible for workers to keep work and home lives totally separate, companies are feeling the negative bottom-line effects and legal consequences of personal e-mails and surf time.

Software monitors use

Some companies are turning to software to monitor employee computer use to improve productivity and avoid potential legal problems-such as employees sharing company trade secrets or offensive jokes. And by 2001, 80% of large companies are expected to have the software in place, says International Data Corp., a research company in Framingham, Mass.

Search engines with filters make it possible to scan e-mails searching for words indicating improper use of the system. Other software actually stores a picture of what's on an employee's screen at the time you're monitoring.

While employers may believe they're justified in monitoring activity-on their equipment, on their premises-employee privacy laws consider whether an employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy (see "Monitoring Electronic Communications," Credit Union Executive Journal, March/April 2000).

The key to taking control of your system is to tell employees outright, "There's very little privacy at work," says Randy Willis, an attorney and speaker at the Conference on State and Federal Personnel Laws in Madison, Wis. "Companies that run into trouble," says Willis, "are those that do nothing to prevent `reasonable expectations of privacy."'

Policies reduce expectations

Companies that reduce employee expectation of privacy, says Willis, have employees sign off on written e-mail and Internet policies stating:

>There's no reasonable expectation of privacy at the company.

>The company owns the equipment and reserves the right to monitor its use-with or without notice-to ensure compliance with company policy.

Willis suggests also placing a continuing notice-spelling out the terms and conditions of use-that appears on the employee's monitor each time the employee accesses the system.

>Communications-electronic or not-aren't considered private. And specify that employees shouldn't use the system to send derogatory, defamatory, obscene, or inappropriate messages.

Here are other ways to avoid creating reasonable expectations of privacy:

>Require everyone to register computer passwords with the network administrator. Don't allow exclusive personal passwords or personal identification numbers, says Willis.

>Delete e-mails on a routine and timely basis. This places control of the information on the system with the credit union, not the employee. And make it clear to employees that merely deleting a message or file may not fully eliminate the message from the system.

>Prohibit employees from loading their own software onto the system. It may constitute a copyright violation (as most software comes with a single-install right), and, Willis says, you may be sued for the copyright infringement. "It's your equipment and you allowed it to be put there."

While the Electronic Privacy Act of 1986 addresses electronic communications, employee privacy rights generally are an issue of state law, so, as with all legal matters, check with your attorney.