Internet use and abuse

This week I have been asked to advise a company who have discovered that one of their admin workers has been using the office internet connection to watch television programmes whilst at work.


This worker has been watching online television programmes during working hours. I asked whether they believe this is the first instance of this or if they suspect previous occasions. The admin supervisor told me that they had caught this person watching TV previously and they had had a quiet word. It didn't work. They caught her again a few days later. They asked their IT people to block access to the website in question. That didn't work either because they found her again watching via an alternate site.


Now they have involved me.


The directors of the company asked me if I thought that they had been too lenient. What do you think? 


I'm now sorting this out for them but my strong advice to other companies is to make sure that you have in place a suitable procedure covering internet and email use and that you monitor usage appropriately.


To monitor individual email and internet browsing etc you must advise employees that the monitoring systems are in place and that their usage may be monitored.


Once your systems and procedures are in place you can then set-up reporting of any inappropriate use. If anything is flagged in the reporting, or if you observe any inappropriate use personally, you must deal with it.


Too often I am asked to deal with repetitive behaviour which has not been adequately addressed previously. Being too lenient sends mixed messages to your employees and complicates the disciplinary process when you finally run out of patience.
  

talmaday: Tribunals - Sometimes the good guys win

talmaday: Tribunals - Sometimes the good guys win: "I have been involved in two Employment Tribunal cases in the last week. One case involved two employees who were dismissed from a small em..."

Tribunals - Sometimes the good guys win

I have been involved in two Employment Tribunal cases in the last week. 

One case involved two employees who were dismissed from a small employer after bullying a work colleague through Facebook.

The two bullies were not friends with their victim on  fb but she found out about their comments through another colleague who was friends with them.

They argued that they never intended the victim to read the comments but the employer acted on a belief that the victim had been subject to harassment and victimisation and that their comments had brought the company into disrepute.

The two bullies were dismissed and brought a complaint of unfair dismissal to the Tribunal. Their claim's failed when the Tribunal found that they had been fairly dismissed.

The second case involved a well-known nationwide gym and personal fitness company who had instigated a business re-organisation project, which led to a redundancy process, that resulted in only one pregnant employee being dismissed.

She brought a claim that the redundancy process was a sham; her post had been abolished and replaced with a very similar-sounding job title with identical duties, the selection process was flawed, had been prejudged by the recent appointment of a favoured employee who retained their post and, an unfair approach to offering suitable alternative employment.

Half-way through the employer's evidence, it apparently became clear to them that their case was very weak, and they conceded. They agreed to pay the claimant, the equivalent of six months salary as a settlement.

Two very interesting cases:

• A small employer appears to have gone to impressive lengths to investigate the Facebook bullying properly and has followed-through with a sound and fair procedure, which resulted in two fair dismissals;
• A very large employer, with a proper management structure and a dedicated HR function, appears to have got it all wrong.

Two more interesting features of these cases:

• The two complainants in the bullying case, appeared to focus all their bad-feeling, both prior to their dismissal and afterwards, on their victim. Until the Tribunal they had seen themselves as the victims, had continued to make similar comments on Facebook and had pursued their claims indignantly. At the hearing, they were properly confronted with accounts of their behaviour, which, I think made them consider their victim and the nature of their actions for the first time.  The employer sensibly asked for costs to be awarded against them and the Tribunal agreed.
• In the fitness company redundancy case, the claimant didn't have a bad word to say about anyone, her case was presented calmly and thoroughly on her behalf and she thanked everyone for taking the trouble to listen.

Sometimes, the good guys win.