Taking the heat

Dear Bob …

We recently fired an employee. Call him Mark. Among the problems we experienced with Mark:

* He ran a side Internet business, using his work e-mail address on occasion. On several occasions, his customers had problems and Mr. Mark responded with inappropriate language. More than once, over several years, through our corporate e-mail system. When his customers complained to us, Mark was reprimanded, but kept on.

* He requested access to betultimate.com, which Websense had blocked as a gambling site. I responded that I could not open up a gambling site during any hours as it was strictly forbidden, not just on the Internet but on company property. He got all upset and started barking at me, so I informed HR of his request. The result was unexpected: I was instructed to open up all banking and travel for Mark on the web filter during all hours. I was confused.

* Then, our president received an e-mail from a former employee – one of Mark’s friends – that included a nude female photo and an implication (untrue) that it was a female employee. That got everything up in arms. I was asked to investigate. I found several nude and pornographic photos, movies, and slide shows on his hard drive. Finally, they fired Mark.

I’m taking the heat.

HR won’t make any type of statement regarding what is acceptable and not acceptable in e-mail and Internet use. Other employees think I have been sitting in my office watching all of Mark’s mail. They think he was singled out and put under a microscope.

What should I do? Let others think what they want? Tell them they simply don’t know the whole story?

Morale here is already low. I think if we tell the truth, without giving too much detail, we would at least get rid of the current stare-downs. Since I am a 1-man department, all eyes are on me.

What do you think?

– Big Brother

Oh, Brother …

So HR is hanging you out to dry, huh? I don’t know the right answer in this situation. Here’s what I think it is, but you’ll have to filter it through your knowledge of the specific political situation.

Draft a memo to all employees. The subject is “IT personal technologies privacy policy.” It should read something like this:

“The ABC Company has not established a formal policy regarding the use of the personal technologies (personal computer, electronic mail, Internet browser, telephone and so forth). The absence of a formal policy is intentional: The company expects employees to make prudent and reasonable choices regarding their personal use of equipment provided for business purposes.

“As manager of the IT function at ABC Company, several employees have asked me recently what their expectations should be regarding the privacy of information stored on their personal computers and network folders.

“The purpose of this memo is to answer the question from the perspective of the companys’ IT function. IT’s role is to act as steward of the company’s information resources, not as the owner. Consequently, IT will not explore the content of any personal device or folders on its own initiative. We will, however, review the contents of personal computer hard drives, network folders, e-mail stores, and telephone call logs when directed to do so by Human Resources in conjunction with a request by the employee’s reporting manager or other manager in the employee’s “chain of command.” All of these resources are company resources provided to employees for business use, not personal resources provided to employees as an employment benefit.

“This memo is not a statement of formal policy – it is a clarification of the scope and boundaries of the company’s IT function. If you have any further questions, please contact me directly.”

Then: Don’t Send the Memo. That isn’t what it’s for. At least, not yet.

Meet with the head of Human Resources, provide a copy of the memo, explain the situation that’s lead you to draft it, and state your intention to distribute it to everyone in the company. Suggest it would be stronger if issued by both HR and IT with additional verbiage clarifying the circumstances most likely to generate this kind of request.

It’s important to make clear to the head of HR that your reason for wanting to issue the memo has less to do with your being unfairly blamed by employees than to clarify expectations so as to avoid further damage to employee morale should you have to perform another review in the future.

Also, reiterate the last paragraph of the memo in the meeting, to make it clear that you don’t intend this memo as a formal company policy, merely a clarification of where you define the scope and boundaries of IT’s authority.

One of three things will happen. Either the head of HR will thank you for the advance notice, at which point you should e-mail it to every employee and post a copy on the company intranet; the head of HR will thank you for a good start on a company policy and agree to take it from here; or the head of HR will tell you to tear up the memo and accept the heat as part of your role in the company.

If you get the third answer (or some variant), I think your best strategy is to make your problem the head of HR’s problem. “We have a mutual problem. If this isn’t the best way to address it, I’d like your suggestion. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I’m pretty sure doing nothing is the wrong one.”

Last item: If the head of HR tells you he (or she) wants to think about it, that’s fine … but schedule a follow-up meeting to bring the issue to closure. “I’d like some time to think about this,” is ManagementSpeak for “I’ll make a decision when you can look out the window and see a bunch of flying pigs.”

– Bob

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