It happened again this week. It started innocently enough. The icon telling me I had a Facebook message popped up. I clicked on the message, and it started to load. And kept loading. Suspicious of the message, I closed it out and crossed my fingers, hoping that nothing had the chance to infect my phone. A short time later, I got the all-too-familiar message from the same friend: “Please ignore the last message from me. My Facebook was hacked. I changed my password. Hopefully, this won’t happen again.”

Since I had already opened the message, I decided it would be a good idea for me to change my password, too. I’ve heard rumors that you should change your passwords every once in a while anyway, and according to Facebook, mine had never been changed. I’ve also heard crazy talk that using things like pet names isn’t a good idea because they can be easy for “crackers” to guess. Determined to have at least one strong password in my arsenal, I took to the Internet to do some password research.

Here’s what I found (including some links for your own further research): read more…

It may not be walking 5 miles to school in the snow up hill (both ways!), but there was a time when businesses had to operate with no e-mail. Seems unimaginable now, but people had to rely on phones, face-to-face conversation, and the “e”-less type of mail. E-mail revolutionized the way most offices did business, quickly becoming the main way most of us correspond. 

But has the benefit of e-mail’s convenience become overshadowed by its ability to suck time — big chunks of it — out of our workdays? In an earlier post, tech expert David Kaufman described the stress and time involved when employees get stuck in an  ”e-mail loop,” the phenomenon of spending the entire day only responding to e-mail.  As a solution, Kaufman pointed to the practice of deconstructing the e-mail process as described by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Citing the fact that “only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful,” French tech company Atos is taking a radical approach — a complete ban on internal company e-mails. Employees won’t be expected to go cold turkey. They will have 18 months to wean themselves off of inter-office e-mails, and they get to keep hitting the send button when it comes to external communications with clients and providers. And they aren’t going back to the dark ages, having to pick up a phone or (gasp) walk down the hall when they want to have a conversation with coworkers.

Atos is considering several types of internal communications, including a company-specific social media site (I’m guessing somewhere on the company’s intranet) the Atos Wiki, which can make for a great project collaboration tool, and Office Communicator, the company’s online chat system where employees can video conference as well as share files and applications.

Do you think your company could survive without internal e-mail? 

– Celeste Blackburn

Previously, employment law attorney Robert L. Bailey discussed how technology enables employers (and anyone else) to track what others are doing on the Web and if that is even a good idea. Now, he looks at the legal aspects you must consider if you decide to monitor employees’ electronic activities.

Regulation of employers monitoring their employees’ electronic activities consists largely of ad hoc rules governing specific circumstances of the act of monitoring and what the employer does with the acquired information. Individually, states can have several laws governing the matter. The federal laws most directly relevant to employers’ monitoring of employees’ electronic communications consist of the various titles of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the Federal Wiretap Act (intercepting telephone calls), the Stored Communications Act (accessing electronically stored information), the Pen Registry Act (recording certain metadata about electronic communications like telephone numbers and e-mail contact information), and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Generally, these acts and their state-law counterparts prohibit the interception or acquisition of communications and data without consent when the person involved had a reasonable expectation of privacy. As a result, proving that consent was obtained can be the best defense (but note that some jurisdictions require consent from all parties, while others require consent from just one).

Your use of monitoring technology must not invade privacy rights. States have rules protecting personal privacy (including the rights to seclusion, to control the use of one’s name and likeness, to control publication of certain personal facts, and not to be depicted in a false light). Some states also have specific statutory schemes proscribing workplace intrusions like taking photographs, making video recordings without consent, and using two-way mirrors, peepholes, hidden cameras, or similar viewing devices. And common-law rules prohibit defaming a person’s reputation by slander or libel.

In addition, you may not retaliate against employees for protected conduct, including  engaging in whistleblower activities, filing workers’ compensation claims, declaring bankruptcy, and fulfilling National Guard obligations. Largely at the instigation of tobacco companies, several states have even enacted statutes forbidding employers from discriminating against employees for any lawful off-duty conduct.

You also must be careful not to monitor employees in a way that would chill (dissuade) them from participating in certain union-related or protected concerted activities (like discussing conditions of employment on Facebook). An employer that takes adverse employment actions after monitoring its employees engaging in protected concerted online activities risks drawing the ire of an enforcement agency like the National Labor Relations Board.

Federal and state laws also prohibits discrimination based on certain protected characteristics, including gender, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, and political affiliation. The simple act of engaging in monitoring that uncovers protected activities or status can strip your company of the defense of ignorance, and a disgruntled employee can be expected to raise these issues following any adverse employment decision.

Technology for HR manual and HR Laws subscribers’ tip: Get tips for writing your Internet use policies and more online.

You should be aware of which technologies you can monitor and the many valid reasons for doing so. But you also must recognize the limitations on monitoring. To ensure that your efforts comply with the law, you should seek competent legal advice before undertaking any interception of electronic communications or data or disclosing any material obtained through monitoring.

The best policy is to have the best policy. That is, carefully craft, correctly disseminate, continuously train on, consistently enforce, and constantly update a broad, flexible written electronic activity and monitoring policy that applicants and employees read and expressly agree to in writing. At a minimum, your policy should explain:

1. the categories of on- and off-duty activities that your company considers inappropriate,
2. the lack of privacy for employees using employer-owned, employer-funded, or employer-operated equipment, and
3. that you will monitor all (or specific) activities — at and away from work — to the fullest extent permitted by law without further notice.

A good policy should prevent employees from forming a reasonable expectation of privacy, at least to the extent the courts are willing to accept it as reasonable. Finally, consistent enforcement will reduce the likelihood of an employee claiming that you are using your monitoring policy as a pretext for any prohibited adverse employment action.

Robert L. Bailey is of counsel with Steptoe & Johnson in the firm’s Charleston, West Virginia, office.  He is co-chair of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology Computer Science Advisory Council. He may be contacted at robert.bailey@steptoe-johnson.com.

Need help crafting your electronic workplace policies? The Technology for HR manual gives you policy pointers  as well as talking points to bring up with employees.

Tech expert David Micah Kaufman gives some suggestions for managing your e-mail without letting it rob you of too much time.

One of the biggest sources of time drain and frustration for workers is feeling the need to constantly check their e-mail and respond to it. E- mail itself, or managing it, has developed into a significant stumbling block for employees, perhaps of even demonic proportions. Efficiency expert David Allen comments in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, “Because of the volume of discrete messages and the speed with which they show up, e-mail seems to be a unique demon, with a life of its own.”

The big issue is the constant barrage of e-mail messages. Many users take each message as it comes in and deal with it with some sort of response or action. That practice has increased the stress level of workers (consider the image of your brain as an overworked telephone operator), as they spend their time in an “e-mail loop,” the phenomenon of spending the entire day only responding to e-mail. read more…

In a previous post, we looked at the issue of goodbye e-mails from the HR practitioner’s point of view. Now, employment law attorney Eileen M. Johnson shares her insights into what can be a tricky situation.

A recent article by a Wall Street Journal intern on “farewell e-mails” presented an insightful look at e-mail messages from employees who were preparing to leave their job (voluntarily or involuntarily) and sharing some parting words with their coworkers.

It used to be that employers would offer a farewell luncheon or party for longtime employees who were retiring or for management staff who were moving to a new company. The departing employee’s supervisor and coworkers would all say nice things about him before the soon-to-be ex-employee had an opportunity to say a few words to the group. But times have changed. Employees move through jobs like they’re playing hopscotch, and the employee farewell party is a thing of the past at many job sites. read more…

A couple of weeks ago, I read  an article in the Wall Street Journal written by an intern who is contemplating what he will write in his goodbye e-mail to his coworkers at the paper. The article was written from an employee’s perspective and included tips for other employees on not burning bridges with these e-mails. When I was finished with the article, I was left wondering about the HR perspective on this type of e-mail. Should they even be allowed as a practice?

To get frontline perspectives from HR practitioners, I took the issue to the HR Hero Employers Forum. Here are some of their responses. read more…

Employment law attorney Richard M. Yurko, Jr., reflects on the increasingly informal nature of communications as we move from face-t0-face to telephone to e-mail to text messages and offers suggestions for HR professionals having problems with a texting workforce.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described the phenomenon of the texting revolution that is upon us. The average teenager (age 13-17) sends and receives 3,339 texts per month ― more than 100 per day. Although adults ages 45-54 aren’t quite as prolific, they send and receive 323 texts each month (a 75% increase over last year). But there’s still a large gap between the two age groups. With newer and faster smartphones and the growing popularity of social media, expect the use of texting and other electronic communication methods to continue to grow. Young adults, however, will undoubtedly continue to lead the revolution.

A New Generation

A few years from now, the teen texting fanatics of today will be your new employees, and they bring a perspective and skill set to the workplace that may be unprecedented. While their computer skills may be impressive, they may not have the social and communication skills that many employers expect of new employees. How you respond to the challenge may determine how successful you are in integrating these new employees into your workforce. read more…

Previously, we discussed the dangers of distracted driving — when employees use mobile technology (yours or theirs) while driving a car (yours or theirs) — and gave some tips for writing policies for your handbook. Now, we bring you actions you can take to further ensure that your employees don’t drive distracted courtesy of employment law attorney Eileen Johnson:

1. Check the driving record of any employee who regularly drives as part of his work duties. You might already do that when hiring new drivers. However, you should review employees’ driving records at least annually to ensure they remain safe drivers. read more…

If your employees use the Internet on your computers or mobile devices, you should be concerned with the findings reported in Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, Vol. 16, which includes nuggets like “the volume of Web-based attacks per day increased by 93 percent in 2010 compared to 2009.” The report also notes the rising trends of attacks through social networks and on mobile devices.

Why You Should Be Concerned

According to the report, it only takes one user to wreak havoc on your whole system: “In most cases, a successful compromise only requires victimizing a user with access to just limited network or administrative resources. A single negligent user or unpatched computer is enough to give attackers a beachhead into an organization from which to mount additional attacks on the enterprise from within, often using the credentials of the compromised user.” read more…

The decline of the English language continues as the Oxford English Dictionary announced that it was adding “OMG” and “LOL” to its lexicon of new words. It seems that texts, “tweets” and e-mails have forced the language wise men at Oxford to include these words in its latest update. OMG, INDEED!

Need gift ideas? We’ve got you’ve covered, or at least, we’ve got your iPad covered. Now you can purchase special protective covers that are guaranteed to peanut butter-proof your iPad or any other electronic tablet. Is this really necessary?

Twitter continues to show up in the most unlikely of places-the hiring process for summer interns.

And, finally, for those of you too busy to attend the royal wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton, I am pleased to announce several apps for your tablets and smart phones that will keep you in the loop. OMG, I was feeling so guilty about turning down Will’s invite to his nuptials, so I’m very grateful to have these apps on hand. Will and I go back a long way. We interned together at the Oxford English Dictionary. We’ve come full circle and hopefully, you’re LOL. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

What else is happening?

-Ralph Gaillard