They left and deleted all their emails

[Surreality22]

Colleague I was managing has left the company after working their notice. They have been quite problematic, lazy and making mistakes. They were supposed to send me some information I needed prior to them finishing and they didn't. I also wanted to know if there was anything outstanding which hadn't been dealt with. So IT gave me access to their emails to check for the missing info. Not only was it not there in sent/draft emails but they'd deleted everything out their inbox up until they left, along with nearly everything in the sent and deleted emails folder.

I'm just wondering why someone would do this? It wouldn't even occur to me to delete work emails when leaving a job, and these would have likely been info sent by colleagues/work requests that need dealing with. I imagine IT can retrieve them hopefully but wondering on the rationale behind doing this, is it just to be a dick and cause me more work?

They don't need to it belongs to the company

I did this - my inbox had other people's details of mental health conditions in it (due to a split role), the person who I thought would attempt to go through my inbox had very poor understanding of legislation regarding disabilities and openly joked about killing people etc.

People can follow up with the external or internal network if they are worried that things may not have been completed.

I did not consent to my email being accessed but he did try. IT thankfully told him to do one due to the split role - he waited several weeks and tried again via a loccum IT staff and then I got the phone call of rage.

That phone call demonstrated I was actually right to delete.

If you line manage them you should have all the contact you need - nice email saying XX has left and please let you know if htey need anything.

Really not rocket science andsomething as a line manager you should already know how to handle.

No deleted emails are lost. They can relatively easily be retrieved by a techie person who knows how

No IT back ups? That seems more of the issue. You knew he or she was a disgruntled employee and did not take steps to get the work before they left?

I had a very toxic employee who was a problem from the start. Brought in to do a specific role that needed overview of the organisation but refused to talk to me about it despite everyone directing her to me as the person with the best knowledge. Wouldn’t save her work on the shared drive as everyone else did routinely.
Her contract wasn’t renewed because of all this. I thought I was being paranoid when I asked IT to make a copy of all her files and emails before she left but sure enough, she deleted the lot.
Looking through all the saved stuff after I could see why, her quality of work was really poor.

That is absolutely fabulous! Revenge must have felt so sweet.

IT can recover deleted emails

Lots and lots of projection going on here, as so often on MN! Anybody who's ever worked for a really nasty manager, or alongside/supervising a waste of space colleague, appears to have picked a side and cast OP or her ex-colleague in those roles. One batshit contribution in the early hours. Different timezone, sleep deprivation or end of a big night out, who knows?

I'd have thought this was fairly standard practice and it was up to the line manger to make sure they had everything they needed TBH, but IT should be able to recover them.

Why didn’t you do a proper handover with them before they left?

Sounds like they were fucked off and wanted to avenge themselves on the way out.

Nothing is ever deleted. IT can recover it very quickly.

In many regulated jobs, deleting records is a criminal activity.

I've given notice and will be doing this. I think it's normal.

I've always done this on leaving a job, not because I've anything to hide, but because it feels tidier.

it's actually quite the dick move. There is always a lot of information in emails, especially if it's a chain.

they did it to piss you off, OP, and i wonder what their reason for leaving was? Hopefully IT can recover them for you.

I deleted everything in one of my jobs, just as a leaving thing really, clearing out your desk so to speak. It was a Google account so not accessible by the employer and I had gone through with a fine tooth comb transferring out into a central space what was needed. It wasnt an aggressive thing. I wouldn't have had time in the later jobs I've left!

I had a manager once who inherited an administrator, let's call her Cherry, who always seemed to be very busy. Other colleagues, however, started telling the manager that every time they asked Cherry to do something she said she was too busy at the moment with work for someone else. Inevitably, they eventually compared notes and discovered that she wasn't doing much work for any of them. My manager went to HR and IT and it turned out that Cherry had a business venture. She ran classes in the evenings and did all the admin during the day on our employer's systems. Sacked for gross professional misconduct. So there's another possible explanation!

This depends who provides the email account.

At my workplace (not a small employer) email accounts are deleted when an employee leaves and contents are non-recoverable.

Emails are just a pain. Especially long email chains. With more people being copied in, some separate emails going on etc.

Some places will have an IT team who can do the back ups. Some don't.

But it is possible to recover deleted emails when someone leaves. But only for a bit depending on which system they use.

Access to inboxes is intrusive but sometimes necessary. People should remember that your company can access them if they have to.

Same for Team chats etc. Best to just have a moan on non company IT resources.

Perhaps it depends on your job, but I would delete emails. People who leave the company I work for do - it’s completely standard practice. It’s just like clearing your desk and emptying your locker and would be regarded as a bit negligent and lazy if you didn’t.

Nothing is ever deleted

If that was true it would likely be breaching data protection legislation and would also make life very difficult for any kind of legal discovery exercise, SARs, FOIs (where applicable) deletion is necessary, you can't keep everything forever.

IT should be able to recover them.

I don't understand people saying it's necessary to read emails for a handover. Anything pertinent should be saved in some kind of filing system. I always PDF mine rather than save as an outlook file but still.

I had permission to access my predecessor’s emails in a previous job, largely because he couldn’t quite believe that he had retired, and kept trying to do my job. IT admin blocked his account eventually, and gave me access exceptionally, in case he had been doing my job and not copying me in (which he was). His email account was full of alerts from gay dating sites, which was quite uncomfortable as he was dating one of the women in the office, who was planning on retiring with him to Devon.

Some people will, some people don't but if the company cares about this they should:

• give instructions on process to departing employees
• ensure that mail is backed up and restorable in the event of mailbox loss, be it malicious or not.

Yes we get the mailbox backed up at the point we know an employee is leaving.