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Article Index
An Email Policy for Your Employees
Permitted Use
Content
Sending Emails
Receiving Emails
Monitoring Email
Implementation
Page 2 of 7

An Email Policy for Your Employees

1. Permitted Use

1.1 In an ideal world, employees would only use company email systems for business purposes. In reality however, this is unlikely.

  • You cannot stop employees receiving personal emails.
  • Allowing some personal use of email may improve your employees' morale, and even efficiency.

1.2 Limit personal use.

You might prohibit:

  • Excessive personal use of email.
  • Inappropriate or illegal content (see 2.3). Offensive jokes can be a particular problem.
  • Engaging in illegal activities. For example, using email to harass someone or deliberately sending a virus.
  • Encrypting personal emails and attachments.
  • Running a personal business while at work.

1.3 Set out when email should and should not be used (see 3).

Instant or Not

Your employees need to be aware of how quickly an email will be transmitted in order to judge whether it is the most suitable option.

If you, or the recipient, only have dial-up Internet access, emails will be a slow method of communication.

  • Emails will only be sent and received when you and the recipient connect to the Internet, although internal emails will be transmitted immediately.
  • You can dial-up specifically to send or check for urgent mail.
  • If an email is urgent, you may want to telephone once you have sent it.

Most businesses now use a broadband connection. Recent Ofcom statistics also show that over half of all UK households now have a broadband connection (Ofcom International Communications Market report 2007).

  • A broadband connection enables emails to be sent and received almost immediately as the connection is 'always-on'.
BHP Infosolutions

Labels: Email & Website
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