Increase In Regulations Just Creates More Reasons To Fire Employees
from the covering-up-the-symptoms dept
Reports of people getting fired for seemingly trivial indiscretions with their computer have become rather commonplace in recent years. It's not hard to figure out why: technology has created a minefield, whereby the smallest mistake can create major liability for an employer. The legal risks alone include sexual harassment lawsuits and failure to comply with regulations. But instead of taking it out on the employee, and explaining why these firings are justifiable, perhaps more effort should be placed on attacking the legal and regulatory culture that created this mess. It's getting to the point with digital communication that it's arbitrary whether an employee is communicating by email or by IP-based phone call. Yet we rarely hear about someone getting fired for a joke they made over the phone (but watch out when it becomes cheap and easy to archive all calls). Any system based on a hodge-podge of regulations that treat different forms of communication differently is bound to result in a lot of mistakes and needless terminations.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
In fact, no one should ever need a justification to fire an employee.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I do agree that evidence is the main issue - hearsay is of no value, and readwrite (to coin a new phrase) has value.
Still, it's the logging issue that may condemn you. How can you prove or disprove bit level tampering or spoofing?
I threaten folks that leave workstations unlocked with sending nasty e-mails to the CEO from their login. Such as: "When do you want to go fornicating with sheep again?" Message logged, read, employee fired, for nothing more than leaving a w/s unlocked.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Responding to Yet Another AC
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Well...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
YAAC
If someone got up and didn't lock it, we'd go and use their email account to send the LAN manager love letters, then he'd know who to smack for not following instuctions to lock their workstation :P
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Well #2...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
You've never heard of witness ...
Not only can the archive the call, they have the computer screen shots to go along with it. It's the ultimate "big brother" Hell I may get fired for posting this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
legal precedents
if you record someone you have to tell them first. that's why you always hear "this call may be recorded for quaility assurance purposes" when you call customer service or tech support lines.
when i worked for a helpdesk i used to record people who yelled or made threats. that way when something ugly happened, i had the recording (of them yelling and me being sweet and helpful) to prove i remained professional.
conversely, customer service types don't often have the ability to record calls. however, their calls are occasionally monitored by thier supervisors who can record.
of course, in a customer service situation it doesn't matter if you are satisified or not. technical support is vastly different, however.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I don't understand how creating more regulations w
By simply having a good repor with your employees for the most part, they'll let you know whos slacking and from there it's not hard to catch them in their tracks.
But increasing regulations sound to me more like it can linger into another area such as personal vendetta, in which I can terminate a compitent worker without any substancial evidence.
I do pretty good with the old regulations
[ link to this | view in thread ]
In the end...
Those old Sierra games had a button you could push that made some generic graph/chart instantly appear on screen. Bring that back pls.
Tom
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Loss of productivity is a bigger reason...
Yes, there are "indiscretions" that occur, and most can be overlooked, but there are also the blatant abusers who will not stop watching pr0n on their work computer (or playing games, working on their MySpace page, etc.) until they are caught and disciplined and/or fired.
The goal should be to let the user know that yes, we really can see everything you do, someone is actually checking those logs, and we keep the logs for 6 months or longer, so stop this activity before it gets the attention of someone higher up in the company.
Too many companies use these logs to go after the slightest infraction, and that, IMHO, is just wrong.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Liability
It seems like a lot of what is being characterized as sexual harrasssment is really just bad manners or social inadequacy.
That said, given the liaibility risks for companies they are within their rights if they have a clear policy on what is and what is not permissible use and fire employees promptly for any violation.
Given the repressive legal climate (both civil and criminal) there is no reason for companies to cut the employees any slack if it means rolling the dice on million dollar damage awards or criminal prosecution.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: fired
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AT Will
[ link to this | view in thread ]
workplace harrassment
[ link to this | view in thread ]