To snoop or not to snoop? Take a balanced view

Jo Faragher

A landmark EU court decision last week appeared to give the green light to employers to check staff’s private messages. Headlines shouted that bosses could now “snoop on staff”, conjuring up images of managers everywhere burning the midnight oil so they can find out exactly what the office junior is doing during their lunch hour.

But as the CIPD and employment law specialists have warned, the ruling does not give employers the right to view messages simply because they’re curious or because they can. The ruling itself stipulated that employers should be careful constructing policies that make employees aware of the circumstances under which their private messages might be monitored, and for what reasons.

The case involved a worker in Romania who had been messaging family members and his fiancée on a Yahoo Messenger account he also used for work, and it was because of this blurred line between the personal and the professional that the employer could argue they had rights to access it.

That said, many Brits have no idea whether their employers monitor their communications at work, according to a survey that came out in response the case. Almost two-thirds did not know if their web history was tracked, and only 27% thought bosses were within their rights to do so, OfficeGenie found.

Peter Ames, head of strategy at the company, says allowing staff the “occasional dalliance” to check their social media profile or message friends or loved ones can actually improve morale at work. And a survey in 2011 showed that a bit of “cyberloafing” can have a positive impact on productivity.

He said: “It’s easy to see why people already being monitored wouldn’t mind – they’re probably already being cautious. People who know they’re being watched significantly change their behaviour.”

Give and take is what’s needed here – where employees are abusing the system this will affect their work, which of course should be addressed. At the same time, staff should treat any communications on work systems carefully. If they wouldn’t say it out loud in a boardroom full of people, keep it for outside work.