IT Services Company Bans Workplace Emails
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- Published on Monday, 05 December 2011 21:38
A French technology company, Atos Origin (which has 74,000 employees in 42 countries), will ban internal email from company communications within two years. Citing the volume of its email as "unsustainable," the company plans to have employees communicate mostly through instant-messaging tools or wiki-like documents that can be edited by multiple users online. According to Atos CEO Thierry Breton, “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives…At Atos we are taking action now to reverse this trend." Breton gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he asserted that he had not sent a work related email in three years. In that interview, Breton emphasized that, "If people want to talk to me, they can come and visit me, call or send me a text message…Emails cannot replace the spoken word." Breton estimates that only 10% of the approximately 200 messages which his employees receive each day on an average work day are useful, and that 18% is spam. A spokesperson from Atos said the response to Breton’s policy has been “positive” and the company has already reduced its volume of internal emails by 20 percent in six months. BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés Faura wrote on the tech blog GigaOm that the decision by Atos “is perhaps the most ringing endorsement yet for the notion that email is being gradually phased out of [the workplace]." Read More.
NLRB Holds Employee’s Linkedin Post Was Unprotected Activity
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- Published on Tuesday, 15 November 2011 05:14
In a recent case involving social media, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that an employee’s post on Linkedin constituted unprotected activity. In 2010, an IT supervisor invited the employee to join Linkedin, a professional and business related networking site. The invitation identified the employer and asked for the employee’s job title. As a joke that the employee believed only the supervisor would see, he replied “f_ _ _ tard.” In February 2011, the employee discussed with some coworkers a successful wage and hour lawsuit filed against another employer that involved employees getting comp time instead of being paid overtime. Although they all agreed that their employer’s policy on overtime might also be unlawful, no one wanted to complain to management. Subsequently, the employer revised its policy and began paying overtime instead of giving comp time. The employer then conducted a study about setting up its own Linkedin profile and as part of that looked at the posts of its employees. After viewing the employee’s “f_ _ _ tard” post, the company advised the employee that the post was in violation of its Electronic Communication Policy as it disparaged the company; the employee was then terminated by the company. The employee filed suit alleging that the company terminated him for engaging in conversations about the overtime issue. He asserted that the timing was suspicious since the post had been on Linkedin for over a year, but the employer alleged it had discovered the post only two months after the employee’s conversation about the overtime. The NLRB held that the “Linkedin ‘joke’ clearly was not protected” and observed that “Moreover, the LinkedIn posting was not a pretextua1 reason for discharging the Charging Party; the Employer has demonstrated that it only discovered the posting in its April review of prior employee posts as part of its assessment of problems with its new LinkedIn page. Finally, no one contends that the Charging Party's posting in violation of the electronic usage policy—the stated reason for his discharge—was protected by Section 7." Read More.
Employers Should Enact Policies to Protect Against Cybercrime
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- Published on Tuesday, 01 November 2011 08:24
Cybercrime is a growing concern for employers, particularly in light of the highly confidential information that may be contained on an employer's electronic systems. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently issued an article regarding the importance of protecting against cybercrime. U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, who chairs the Justice Department’s Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Enforcement advisory group, has made combating cybercrime a top priority. This includes “working with companies and individuals to enforce federal laws when systems are hacked, personal information is compromised, payroll and banking information is misused, electronic commerce is disrupted or trade secrets are stolen.” In response to a grand jury indictment of three individuals who allegedly hacked into computer systems to steal personal and business information, U.S. Attorney Durkan said: “These defendants combined ‘old school’ methods such as burglary, with high tech methods such as using unprotected wireless networks to hide their identities while draining bank accounts and committing fraud. The victims in this case quickly reported the hacking to law enforcement — a key step to bringing these defendants to justice.” According to the DOJ, their successful effort to solve the crime, which is alleged to have victimized more than 50 area businesses, was due in large part to the fact that companies came forward to report the crimes. As a result, members of the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force were “able to connect the dots on what looked like unrelated incidents.” The DOJ offers business (and employers) the following tips for preventing cybercrime: (1) Businesses should review their wireless encryption and confirm that they are using the appropriate level of encryption (WPA2 Personal or WPA Enterprise); (2) Businesses should keep a record of all laptop computers and ensure that any computers with remote access are encrypted. Any missing laptop computers should have passwords and credentials replaced immediately; (3) Businesses should be aware of hacking that can occur from physical access to the server room as well as from external hacking; (4) Employees should never click past security certificate warning screens and should notify their IT staff immediately; (5) Managers should be aware of “watercooler” talk among employees that may indicate a breach has occurred. This includes numerous employees complaining of fraud on personal accounts; (6) Businesses should ensure that they have a security response plan prepared in the event that some kind of incident does occur; (7) If a business/employer notices suspicious activity, local law enforcement should be contacted. Read More.
