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Electronic communications policies must combine business needs and legal liabilities

Electronic communications policies need to take into consideration the unique nature of the companies that are using them, according to Joseph L. Beachboard, an attorney and shareholder at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Steward, P.C. in Torrance, California. Consequently, when drafting such policies, employers should: (a) recognize that legal issues exist regarding workplace technologies and familiarize themselves with these issues; (b) look at business needs fulfilled by various technologies; and (c) combine those two things together. Beachboard gave a presentation on minimizing the legal liability for employers associated with employees' use of electronic communications at the 60th Annual Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) Conference & Exposition in Chicago, Illinois on June 24, 2008. The presentation was entitled, `Lost in MySpace' -- How Technology Poses New Risks for Employers."

Forms of workplace technology. Beachboard cited various forms of workplace technology including:

• E-mail;
• Instant messaging;
• Voice mail;
• Internet;
• Intranets and extranets;
• Cell phones; and
• Employee web log (or "blogs").

Litigation involving the use of workplace technologies could include defamation claims, harassment/discrimination claims, and sanctions related to an employer's obligation to preserve documents that might be relevant to litigation, Beachboard noted. Federal law places some limitations on electronic monitoring of employee communications; thus, employee privacy rights are also an important consideration. An essential component of electronic communication policies should be to decrease an employee's expectation of privacy, he advised.

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