Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Work

Chat with other users about all things related to working life on our Work forum.

Original poster

They left and deleted all their emails

180 replies

Surreality22 · 08/12/2022 23:02

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?

OP posts:
Backtoreality1 · 09/12/2022 08:29

I did this too, but as I was being made redundant and treated like shite after working my guts out for them, I had no guilt! Most of what came out of my sector was from contacts I had bought with me from previous roles and I was damned if i was going to make their life easy.

Summerfun54321 · 09/12/2022 08:33

Why would you NOT delete emails? All relevant information should be stored and filed and shared before leaving, why would you keep any information of any importance in your inbox? Maybe it varies per industry but I’d be pretty pissed off if I had to search around for something in an ex employees emails.

OverTheRubicon · 09/12/2022 08:33

Fun fact for anyone thinking of doing this, or who says it's 'standard practice' - it is actually illegal to delete valuable files that belong to your work, not you, and in more extreme cases, people have been charged in the past for doing so under the Computer Misuse Act. www.secrc.co.uk/post/case-study-business-collapses-after-angry-ex-employee-deleted-every-single-file

Best practice is not to allow access to mailboxes of departing employees in case there are e.g. emails to HR about mental health issues etc, however it is allowable if there are business requirements. It's also important to keep some files for a period of time in case for example there's a legal case, so mailboxes usually will be archived for a period even if no-one has access.

Basically, don't use your work email for anything you wouldn't want your boss or at least HR seeing, and don't be an idiot and delete everything when you go.

starfishmummy · 09/12/2022 08:34

I did.

I left (as one of several) on voluntary redundancy. Lack of work in the last week or so, but had to be there so had a general tidy up. Nothing was required for handovers though.

Roselilly36 · 09/12/2022 08:41

Sounds a very immature thing to do, especially when IT can just recover the backed up data, pointless.

limitedperiodonly · 09/12/2022 08:45

I'll take your word for it that they were lazy and made mistakes but when they deleted all the information you needed and failed to get before they left it wasn't a mistake and they were extremely diligent. It's proving to be problematical though. I expect next time you'll make sure you get everything before the person walks out the door.

MichaelFabricantWig · 09/12/2022 08:47

biedrona · 08/12/2022 23:06

Have they given consent to have their inbox accessed?

They don’t need to.

butterfliedtwo · 09/12/2022 08:48

goldfishthecracker · 08/12/2022 23:08

Must have been a very toxic job to do that on leaving

Agree. I've done it when I hated the job I left. It was very satisfying.

The IT department should have backups.

MichaelFabricantWig · 09/12/2022 08:49

Be glad you’re rid of them and give them a shit reference.

and before the “you can’t give a bad reference” brigade pop up, yes, yes you can actually. What you can’t give is an inaccurate or false reference.

MichaelFabricantWig · 09/12/2022 08:52

If they were dismissed though it shows it might have been better to pay them in lieu of notice than have them work it.

and there may be nothing wrong with the workplace. Some employees are just total arseholes.

MaryMollyPolly · 09/12/2022 08:54

OverTheRubicon · 09/12/2022 08:33

Fun fact for anyone thinking of doing this, or who says it's 'standard practice' - it is actually illegal to delete valuable files that belong to your work, not you, and in more extreme cases, people have been charged in the past for doing so under the Computer Misuse Act. www.secrc.co.uk/post/case-study-business-collapses-after-angry-ex-employee-deleted-every-single-file

Best practice is not to allow access to mailboxes of departing employees in case there are e.g. emails to HR about mental health issues etc, however it is allowable if there are business requirements. It's also important to keep some files for a period of time in case for example there's a legal case, so mailboxes usually will be archived for a period even if no-one has access.

Basically, don't use your work email for anything you wouldn't want your boss or at least HR seeing, and don't be an idiot and delete everything when you go.

We are told to do so, though, by our workplace, on leaving. I never use my work email account for personal emails, so it has nothing to do with that. No one is deleting files. We delete emails.

At one company I know, all emails are automatically deleted by IT after I think six months, maybe a year, even when you are still in employment. That causes some trouble for those who like to hang on to certain emails because of the info they have in them.

Ittybittytittycomittee · 09/12/2022 08:54

biedrona · 08/12/2022 23:06

Have they given consent to have their inbox accessed?

They wouldn't need to. If it's a company email, its company property.

sheepdogdelight · 09/12/2022 08:54

We are encouraged not to save emails in personal inboxes but to save them to centrally accessible locations (if important for work purposes). This also saves on space from a sustainability perspective.

So, the expectation would absolutely be that you had nothing in your work Inbox if you'd left. A proper handover should have been completed with the person to make sure that they didn't have anything important that hadn't been shared.

Tigger7654 · 09/12/2022 08:56

As you said she was lazy I'd imagine she spent a lot of time sending personal emails and as it's not uncommon for someone to be given access to your email when you leave, she didn't want anyone to know.

GetThatHelmetOn · 09/12/2022 08:57

Does you company use Google apps? If so, you may be unfair, all content an employee creates from emails to any kind of document, will disappear if their Google account is deleted UNLESS there has been good practice for these documents to be created and not owned by individual employees.

Leaving employees who are, by default, the owners of their own documents, can hand ownership to a designated individual BUT… this will need to be done document by document and will clog that persons email account with thousands of document ownership acceptance requests that they will have to accept… one by one.

fannyfartlet · 09/12/2022 08:59

biedrona · 08/12/2022 23:06

Have they given consent to have their inbox accessed?

They don't need to as it's a work system.

Original poster
Surreality22 · 09/12/2022 08:59

They left of their own accord, got a new job and worked notice. I wasn't the only one who knew they were rubbish. It's not a toxic workplace and I treated them very fairly but this person didn't complete a lot of work when they were supposed to. I'm not sure if they were just very forgetful or couldn't be arsed. I tried to escalate things but basically had to put up with it.

IT will be able to get their emails, we did a handover I received some info (I often had to ask multiple times and flag to management that things hadn't been done) and I asked them to send me that other info but didn't receive it. I'm very busy myself and can't always be watching someone else.

I hope it wasn't malicious because we did get along well enough despite the performance issues, I even got them a small leaving gift.

Anyway they're gone now so onwards and upwards.

OP posts:
BooksAreSaferThanPeople · 09/12/2022 09:01

Love that so many posters are assuming the worker was in the right and works for a toxic employer. Good old Mumsnet.

Have you considered that the employee may just be a lazy arsehole? I work with one, they do exist!

OneFrenchEgg · 09/12/2022 09:01

I left last week and went through all my emails and left anything which could be useful (evidence of decisions etc) and deleted all the rest. Was more worried about Teams chat tbh, didn't realise you can't delete the threads just individual messages your side Blush

Giggorata · 09/12/2022 09:02

I deleted all mine when I retired.
Any of the relevant information in them had been transferred to files and folders already, but I was bad at hanging on to old emails and had a vast folder. Periodically, IT used to request that we had a clear out of old emails, so I don't suppose it was an issue.

CockingASnook · 09/12/2022 09:02

Absolutely unacceptable to delete emails like this. For one thing they’re the property of the company.

Justellingthetruth · 09/12/2022 09:10

@GiltEdges

sorry you are legally 100% wrong.
you don’t have a private work email
you have a personal one
everything is property of the company

they effected destroyed company property which is an offence

Justellingthetruth · 09/12/2022 09:12

@Giggorata

thus person did not do as you
they destroyed important info

re removing emails that is a company practise used to limit potential liabilities

DogInATent · 09/12/2022 09:20

Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious · 09/12/2022 06:13

no one has a right to privacy in a work email.

People do have a right to clear their inbox when they leave though 🤷🏻‍♀️

No, you do not "have a right to clear their inbox when they leave".

The contents of your work email folders do not belong to you, they belong to your employer.

We've gone through an information security audit, and part of it was tightening up the off-boarding procedure when people leave to make sure the business retains all relevant information. That includes email, in-company instant messaging apps, work-related cloud folders, etc.

Dotjones · 09/12/2022 09:21

I thought it was standard behaviour to delete your emails and files when leaving a company? I've always done that.

I'm more concerned that IT would actually allow you to access their emails, this is a serious data breach and you should report it under GDPR. Unless they've actively consented nobody else should have access. Even if your company policy is "business email can't be used for anything personal" there is a risk of personal data being in the emails. It doesn't matter if it shouldn't be there.