One-Third Of Companies Monitoring Email

dotpavan writes "While studies have shown that spying on workers tends to make them less productive, that hasn't stopped approximately 1/3 of all U.S. companies from employing email monitoring tools. 43% of those companies employ staff to check outgoing emails. This seems like quite a waste. While there are some times when it makes sense to monitor emails (or it's required by law), most of the time, this seems like a complete waste of money. Not only are you upsetting workers and decreasing productivity, the benefits are pretty hard to spot. The number of "problem" emails tends to be incredibly low. If someone really wants to send out inappropriate emails, they're going to figure out some other way to do so, such as via a free webmail account somewhere. Yet, the companies are buying up expensive tools and hiring staff to watch just in case they catch the one or two problematic emails that go over the corporate network."

Comments

It's less expensive than not monitoring

[Salo2112]

The first time your employer gets dragged into court because some asshat couldn't resist sending his racist/sexist/offensive joke to the most easily offended person at the company will make you wish you'd spent the money, time and effort to monitor up front.

If you monitor and act on what you find, you can at least mitigate damages.

Re:Hmm...surprised the number isn't higher...

[JasdonLe]

Oh! It looks like I'm the next person in line to tell you that you used "THERE" instead of "Their." It really is quite simple.