New Survey on Workplace E-Mail Reveals Disasters in the Making: 14% of US Companies Ordered to Produce Employee E-Mail

E-Mail Survey from American Management Assoc & ePolicy Institute reveals that US employers are doing a poor job of managing e-mail business risks and reducing legal liability. Survey addresses broad workplace e-mail concerns: legal evidence, spam, monitoring, policy, productivity, employee education, risks, etc.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Roger Kelleher
212/903-7976   
rkelleher@amanet.org
Nancy Flynn
614/451-3200
nancy@epolicyinstitute.com

New Survey on Workplace E-Mail Reveals Disasters in the Making: 14% of US Companies Ordered to Produce Employee E-Mail

New York, NY...E-mail, the electronic equivalent of DNA evidence, is playing an increasingly common role in workplace lawsuits and regulatory investigations. A primary source of evidence in high-profile discrimination, sexual harassment, and antitrust claims, e-mail is regularly used to bolster cases, embarrass organizations, and damage reputations. A new survey of 1,100 US companies reveals that 14% of respondents have been ordered by a court or regulatory body to produce employee e-mail, up from 9% just two years ago.

In spite of growing scrutiny from courts and regulators, most employers are doing a poor job of managing e-mail business records and preparing for the likelihood of e-mail discovery. Only 34% of employers have a written e-mail retention and deletion policy in place today. Thats the same figure reported in 2001, 12 months before five Wall Street brokerages were fined $8.3 million for failing to retain e-mail. When it comes to strategically managing e-mail business risks and reducing legal liability, business has been slow to learn its lessons.

According to the 2003 E-Mail Rules, Policies and Practices Survey, a new survey from American Management Association, The ePolicy Institute, and Clearswift, the
average employee spends 25% of the workday on e-mail, with 8% of workers devoting over four hours a day to e-mail. While failing to meet the challenges of e-mail retention, most employers are eager to keep online employees in line. Over half (52%) of employers monitor e-mail. Three-fourths have put written e-mail policies in place. And 22% have terminated an employee for violating e-mail policy. Over 1,100 US employers participated in the 2003 E-Mail Survey, a follow-up to an e-mail survey conducted by American Management Association and ePolicy Institute in 2001.

Most employers drop the ball when it comes to educating employees about e-mail risks, rules, and responsibilities," says Nancy Flynn, co-author of E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication (AMACOM Books 2003) and executive director of The ePolicy Institute, www.ePolicyInstitute.com. While 75% of organizations have written e-mail policies in place, only 48% offer e-policy education to employees, and merely 27% offer e-mail retention/detention training." says Flynn. On the upside, e-policy training has doubled since 2001, when 24% of companies offered e-policy education to employees.

The use of technology to monitor e-mail and control message content has increased since 2001, when 24% of respondents reported using software to conduct key word or key phrase searches of e-mail and/or computer files. In 2003, over 40% of employers report using software to control written e-mail content. Fully 23% couple software with education, which corresponds with the Three-E approach to e-risk management detailed in Flynns new book E-Mail Rules: (1) establish written e-mail rules and policy; (2) educate the workforce about risks and policy compliance; and (3) enforce e-mail policy with policy-based content security software that works in concert with the organizations established e-mail rules and policies.

While 90% of employers have installed software to monitor incoming and outgoing e-mail, only 19% are using technology to monitor internal e-mail among employees.
Managements failure to check internal e-mail is a potentially costly oversight. Off-the-cuff, casual e-mail conversations among employees are exactly the type of messages that tend to trigger lawsuits, arm prosecutors with damaging evidence, and provide the media with embarrassing real-life disaster stories. The fact that 90% of respondents send and receive personal e-mail at work and 66% of companies lack a policy for deleting nonessential messages, compounds the problem," says Flynn.

Over three-quarters (76%) of respondents say that they have lost time in the last year due to e-mail system problems, with 35% estimating half a day lost, and 24% reporting more than two days lost. Among the workplace problems e-mail has caused: disabled computer systems (38%), business interruptions (34%), and computer viruses (33%). Five percent of 2003 respondents report business has been interrupted as the result of e-mail-related lawsuits.

Eighty-six percent of respondents agree e-mail has made them more efficient, in spite of the fact that 92% receive spam mail at work. Fully 47% say spam constitutes more than 10% of all their e-mail; 7% report spam represents over 50% of all e-mail received.

Whether you employ one part-time worker or 100,000 full-time professionals, any time you allow employees access to your e-mail system, you put your assets, future, and reputation at risk," says Flynn. Fortunately, by developing and implementing a strategic e-mail management program that combines rules, policy, education, and enforcement, employers can anticipate e-mail disasters, address employee misuse, derail intentional abuse, curtail e-mail blunders, and limit costly electronic liabilities."

The 2003 E-Mail Rules, Policies and Practices Survey is co-sponsored by American Management Association, The ePolicy Institute, and Clearswift. Survey summary, interviews, photos, e-disaster stories available upon request. For a free review copy of E-Mail Rules (Nancy Flynn and Randolph Kahn, Esq., AMACOM Books, 2003), contact Amacoms Irene Majuk (212/903-8087 or imajuk@amanet.org). Contact AMAs Roger Kelleher (212/903-7976 or rkelleher@amanet.org) for survey process. The ePolicy Institutes Nancy Flynn (614/451-3200 or nancy@epolicyinstitute.com) for
e-mail management best practices.