Risks & responsibilities
Are your policies good enough?

Risks & responsibilities
Companies are increasingly recognising the need to have very strong IT policies in relation to email and internet usage, but how clearly articulated are these policies? A recent case, Wilmott v Bank of Western Australia Ltd (2001 WAIRC 03013, 13 June 2001), highlights some of the issues surrounding these policies, including what is stated within the policy, how it applies within the workplace, the consistency of applying the policy, and the nature of other behaviours within the workplace.

Wilmott was dismissed because he stored inappropriate email that he had received from another employee within BankWest on his own laptop and this behaviour was seen to be ‘an act of misconduct’. Wilmott’s laptop was linked to BankWest’s server, through which he received emails.

His possession of the material was discovered by Staff Investigations. During his interview with the Staff Investigations Manager, Wilmott admitted that he knew of BankWest’s policy on pornographic material, had received and read the General Manager’s email in regard to it and shortly thereafter also received and read the company’s Internet and Email Usage Policy.

He also agreed that he received, on commencing permanent employment, documents in relation to harassment in the workplace and these contained reference to inappropriate materials received through email or via the internet.

Wilmott argued that he interpreted ‘offensive’ to be ‘pornographic’ and that he did not consider the material that he had saved as pornographic. After re-reading the policy he understood that what he had stored was in breach of the guidelines on objectionable material. He also argued that, previously employees had been given warnings, not dismissed for this type of behaviour. Wilmott also said that there were copies of B magazine lying around the workplace which contained pictures of partially clad women and sexually explicit articles. In response, the General Manager of People and Organisational Development stated that if pictures such as the ones in the magazines were in an employee’s computer file, they would be in breach of the company’s email policy.

The WA Industrial Relations Commission found that Wilmott was harshly dismissed. The Commissioner found:

• the emails were ‘dirty jokes, which one might find in the possession of schoolboys’
• Wilmott did not forward the emails to any other persons
• no evidence that other Bank officers except those investigating the matter read or viewed the emails
• ‘whilst there was a clear statement by the Managing Director...that staff who retained pornographic material on their systems would be dismissed, no such warning was given in relation to offensive or otherwise inappropriate material’ and there was no explanation of what the Bank would consider to be ‘inappropriate or offensive material’.

• are your company’s email/internet and harassment policies consistent with each other?
• do they have clear and precise definitions that can be understood by all?
• is the behaviour and materials permitted in the staff room of a different standard than what is stated in the email policy?
• do your policies include a range of disciplines to suit the severity of the behaviour?

Some people use email to communicate with others in ways they are uncomfortable to do face-to-face, eg they will express anger, discipline others, bully or nag via email. Sometimes people will cc inappropriately causing confusion or conflict, or will use ‘bcc’ in such a way that people wonder why they can’t know who else the email has been sent to. In some workplaces people use email to complain about those they work with and this has already become the subject of unfair dismissal claims.

It is also interesting to review how people use abbreviations, sentence structure and punctuation, for example, when an email is in capital letters, does it mean the person is yelling? Some people would say yes.

The type of information that is conveyed through email is important. In a company in Hong Kong all employees received an email one Monday morning. It read ‘The receptionist Miss... was killed on the weekend. The relief roster for reception will be...’ This was how the employees learnt of the death of a fellow colleague! There could have been a more sensitive way of telling people.

If email is becoming, or already is, a central and vital way of communicating within your organisation, it would be wise to establish precise and clear policies in regard to its use, with an equally precise outline of expected outcomes if the policy is breached.