Religious Emails from Co-Workers

[DanB]

I have recently had an employee commence sending out religious emails relating to their faith. Given offices are located globally, this has offended quite a number of employees given the different faiths followed by staff and the sexual orientation of staff.

Is there any stance that I can take relating to the circulation of these emails?

Any assistance would be provided...

[Moz]

Are they essentially preaching to all and sundry via email?

I take these are not business emails?

[DanB]

Correct they are not business emails. We have a technology policy including a clause about "clogging up inboxes" with unnecessary emails, I am happy to address - however I dont want the discrimination card thrown up


They are sending You Tube videos of church sessions, announcements etc

[Qld IR Consultant]

Address it simply as sending out inappropriate emails. Trick to avoiding discrimination allegations is simply stating generically that emails that are not of a business nature or related directly to the employees role are deemed inappropriate and not for distribution. Include examples of jokes, chain mail etc. Then tighten up your policy with specific examples.....

[Moz]

Address it simply as sending out inappropriate emails.

Definitely, and put it in writing, making quite clear that the email system is for business use and it is not to be used to send email messages of a personal nature. No ifs or buts.

Hopefully your policy already contains something along these lines.

To my mind, advice about "clogging up inboxes" is not enough and it's not specific (open to interpretation).

Unfortunately, workplace email policies need to be quite comprehensive and thorough but you don't need to re-invent the wheel, just google "email policy" and you will find many examples on the web, particularly from Universities.

Also, get your IT Admin people to make sure your email system cannot easily be used by normal staff, to broadcast to all staff. The only people who should have access to an "all staff" email address group should be certain senior management and HR.

[Neb-Maat-Re]

I agree with the advice that the line you should take here is these are personal emails and not appropriate business use.

You may well have the discrimination card thrown at you, but the response is to stress they are simply non-business.

I have had the situation where we have had to ask staff to modify the non-business content of their email signatures.

The suggestion that there are restrictions on (or alternatively clear guidelines about who has the authority to send or approve) "all staff" emails is a good approach.

[DanB]

Thanks for the advice - will post an update

[Tiger]

In addition to the advice already offered - ensure both your Personal Behaviour and Internet/Email usage policies include these issues - mere that using the company email account for personal business (one's religion is) is not permitted, I alsi suggest sitting down with the employee and pointing out there is a breach of policy and if there are any future incidents, discioplinary action will be taken. She/He may simply not realise so depending on that, you might take a softer approach. A decade or so ago, I had a 'born again' employee who used to leave religious notes on peoples' lunches in the fridge - not favourably received but the final straw was the day she left one attached to a client's briefcase! Back then, there was no policy so I called her and we talked. She got the message and it never happened again. One additional point howver, depending on the scope of the offending emails (it is just employees or customers too), you might have to go into damage control if you don't want customers to think this is a company supportive thing!