More of a WWYD if you were my DH...

[ellangirl]

My DH is a manager in an office. Whilst looking for some information he needed he came across emails sent between two members of his team, and quickly realised they were of a personal nature involving massive hatred and criticism mostly of him, but ask of other members of staff. They include personal nicknames for office staff, criticism of how lazy people are, how he is rubbish at his job, how lazy I am because I don't work etc. they call people all manner of names incl lazy bitch, Cnut, tosser etc. what should he do? These date back 2 years or so, and could in theory be seen by anyone in the office s they were not deleted ...

I can't comment on whether he is shit at his job thesecondcoming, but I would hope that if he was, his boss or clients would have had something to say about it by now, but they are all very happy with him and he gets positive appraisals. He didn't mean to come across these emails, it just happened. The slagging is not just directed at him either, there are others involved.

If he is shit at his job with a wife constantly on the phone his colleagues could deal with it without behaving like playground bitchy children.

I think if they feel that strongly that they have a case for their bitching they can present it when they discuss the e-mails they left in the public domain.

I have to regularly listen to colleagues taped telephone conversations and pull their old e mails out as part of my role. IMO he will need to tread quite carefully about why he was searching through their inboxes. I have to get approval from compliance, HR and my head of department before I can pull old tapes and e mails - even though they are technically works property. If I searched through colleagues e mails without the necessary permissions I'd be on a gross misconduct charge myself.

What about the other bits of the emails TSC, the bits that had nothing to do with his job performance, don't they make this different to just an understandable venting sesh?

If you came across an email you knew was slagging you off, wouldn't you read it??

I fucking would, if only to plot the course my revenge would take

What are these people like generally in the workplace? Are they hardworking and reasonably well-liked team members, or do they already have form for skiving, whining and being unpleasant? If they are otherwise good staff then the suggestion upthread about telling them how stupid it was to send such emails in the company mail system is a good one. If they are useless and horrible anyway then go in with big boots on and sack them.

Did you also not hear the emails where they were joking about the office junior performing oral sex on other members of staff? If you want to joke about that rubbish down the pub with your friends then that's your call, but to waste office time and resources on it then they need to suck up whatever it is that's coming their way.

From the company's point of view and your husbands as an employee he needs to forward these e-mails to HR. If not he could be leaving the company in a very bad position legally and could cause problems for himself in the future by not taking any action. If he takes no action then he could be accused of covering up or being complicit.

I am not one for ratting out colleagues in general, but the thing that really bothers me here is the stuff about the woman dying and having to perform CPR on her.

If she is not off on sick leave and still working, imagine if she found that?

Or imagine if the office junior was asked to sort those emails that that person had dumped unsorted in the public folder?

In that case, both women would have clear cases against the company. If DH is a manager, he has a clear duty to prevent that happening. He needs to go to HR.

It's also probable that people who exchange emails that unpleasant (as opposed to the more general 'boss is a pooface, job is rotten' stuff that many people might say on a bad day) are unpleasant to co-workers, possibly passing off upsetting remarks as 'Just a bit of banter, can't you take a joke you miserable cunt?' and that kind of thing. Is this the case OP?

Thank you all so much for your input, it has been interesting to hear different viewpoints. I feel that I have represented my DH fairly and it seems the vast majority agree that the people in question are guilty of some kind of misconduct and it should be taken further. My DH does not really care what they have said about him, but he is upset that it now creates a toxic environment which would be very hard to manage and that he has no choice but to bring it to the company's attention. It is a clear breach of company IT policy as well as being offensive. He is upset on behalf of the other people who have been talked about and doesn't wish them to suffer either. Indeed there have been many inappropriate comments made by the 'leader' especially to the women in the office- he is the sort to make offensive jokes of a sexual nature directed towards the office junior for example, so these emails are representative of his attitude in general as solid has suggested.

He has the weekend to think about exactly what to say now, which is probably best so it is all dealt with in a level headed way all round.

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend everyone!

Remember the the other people that have talked about need never know. In the case I had to deal with, the other people in the team that were talked about have never been told - it wouldn't do any good as the culprit still has to work with them. It would have also breached confidentiality about the action taken with the culprit and would have caused unnecessary hurt.

Good luck to your DH - it won't be easy, but it will be a relief when it is dealt with.

Um your DH has to be very careful, work e-mail is afforded some degree of privacy under the data protection act. Accessing individuals emails can only be done under specific circumstances otherwise a claim for breach of the data protection act which can attract serious fines could be brought against him and the company. There is a lot of good information on this on the information commissioners website.
Yes the staff in question may be being unprofessional and nasty but gaining access to information in this way even accidentally can incur serious penalties, and would probably affect any action taken against them.

wonkylegs - the privacy you refer to is to do with what could be released to a data subject e.g. a client should they put in a subject access request - it does not apply to employee / employer relations, especially when it comes to a breach of the corporate email policy.

Even if the emails breach internal IT policy, the data protection act rights to certain privacies would override that policy if the access was not obtained in the correct way. Usually this involves specific investigation and informing the staff members that monitoring is taking place, which wouldn't cover accidentally finding them.

I'm going to go against the majority here who say report them and get them fired.

Personally I think this is a perfect opportunity to gain some respect from the troublesome staff members.

Look at it this way. Let's say he reports it. What will happen is word will get round. The people who have been spoken about will get upset. The staff members in question will be mortified, probably suspended at least or even fired. The atmosphere in the office will be utterly toxic. And that's before the staff all wonder if your DH did all this because he was upset at the contents of the mail and in future are very wary about everything they do and say.

Instead what I'd do is call them into an office. Explain that he found these emails in the wrong place. And that personally he doesn't care what people say about HIM and if as the boss he doesn't expect to be popular. As far as he's concerned it's just office gossip & banter. But that he's worried that the mail's will upset others and then he'd be forced to report to HR as its gross misconduct. In the meantime they've got 2 hours to delete all the emails and as long as noone else has seen it then it won't be mentioned again.

The two members of staff will probably be mortified enough but at the same time be grateful to your DH for being gracious enough to not have their asses fired. This builds trust and respect. Something he cannot manage without.

The data protection good policy guide also covers monitoring internal communications between staff www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/topic_guides/~/media/documents/library/Data_Protection/Detailed_specialist_guides/the_employment_practices_code.ashx section 3 and if it's a public sector employer the expectation to privacy can be even more onerous depending on internal policies. So I would just recommend treading carefully.

ellan - you and your H sound like fair and reasonable people.

It's a no brainer for me - they used a company email to slag off everyone in a very nasty way. I presume there are quite a lot of e mails and they were doing it in company time. I wouldn't care about anything else, it's their own fault. And if you do bump into their wives etc because it's a small community - well sorry tough shit. If they start being funny with you, so what? You are the one who has been slagged off and you can remind them of that if you have to.

Print off everything and report - disciplinary.

You have had a lot of good advice here. My view would be to make an appointment with a manager in HR and explain the problem without naming names and ask for advice on what he should now do. That is what they are there for.

This is almost certainly a gross misconduct issue. Now is not the time to play silly fluffy games. This sort of thing is toxic in an office. They have probably got steadily worse over a period. The offensive sexual comments about the office junior will probably be enough for dismissal on their own.

That they were so incompetent as to put these emails into a shared folder would make me doubt their professional ability and judgement. They will be no loss.

The one thing your DH cant do is nothing. To do nothing would be to condone what has been said and would almost certainly damage his own career.

I need to make clear that my DH has not accessed anything he shouldn't have. Because of the nature of work done in the office, all client related emails should be filed at the time into the relevant folders so that the information is open and accessible to all employees. What the one employee has done here is put his personal emails in the wrong place, such that they could be seen, instead of deleting them.
gnome he has decided that is what he should do, I.e. ask for further advice from the HR manager. He really doesn't feel he can sort this out himself. These emails go back a few years, and are really venomous, so sorting it out himself now is not going to make them suddenly respect him, or anyone else in the office. He isn't their boss, only their manager, and he doesn't have the right to deal with breaches of company policy. This is presumably only some of what has been written via company email, who knows what else is out there on the company system. he does not want anyone to be fired, but they did have a choice as to how to behave at work, and should take responsibility for that.

Thanks again everyone.

I think your DH is being very sensible Ellangirl. I hope this goes as well as it can for him.

It is possible that as they are old emails that the participants will be severely reprimanded rather than fired but as you say, they had the choice.

Best wishes

Well when I say they go back a few years, I mean that's when they started. The most recent ones in this file are march, so it has been going on a while, and presumably there would be more of the same in his inbox. Thanks all!

Oh, I see, Ellangirl. In which case the best thing your DH can do is find out where the bankers boxes are kept. They are going to be needing them!

Ellangirl - This is really serious. This is not a one off spate of stupidity but a persistent misuse of the the email system to denigrate their colleagues. Your DH is right to put this in the hands of HR. If this is in a common mail file what happens if the office junior finds some of the emails with sexual references and then it turns out that your DH was aware of their existence and did nothing.