"After a substandard performance review, an employee was asked to take an alternate position within the firm at a lower pay rate. The employee decides to contest the forced demotion and manages to obtain copies of e-mail messages about him that were sent between his boss and his boss'smanager.
The question is: Is the employee's action in obtaining co-worker e-mails inappropriate?
While this situation involves a number of human resource complexities, the issues relating to workplace e-mail are:
Has the employee broken the law?Has the employee violated a corporate code of conduct?
Is this act considered grounds for dismissal and/or legal action?
First, we need to know how the employee obtained the e-mails. . ."
Comment: Document retention and office security policies (as well as electronic discovery) must consider the impact of stored electronic data that may be available to disgruntled employees.
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