Need your advice asap
GLC
174 Posts
Our MIS mgr. was copying a drive off of a male supervisor's computer today to install the drive on another employee's computer. The male supv. knew she would be working on his computer and gave her permission. He was out of the office at the time. The MIS mgr. needed a diskette to use to copy this drive so she picked up one he had on his desk. She said she has done that before with other employees when she needed a diskette. She said she assumed it was a business diskette.
When she put the diskette in, it was several sexual acts between men. This male ee is gay. Our MIS mgr said she immediately took the diskette out and laid it back on the desk. She says she was not meddling, but innocently picked up the diskette to copy this drive. I believe her. The question is whether we should confront this male employee about this, given that we know now, it was his personal diskette. We don't have proof that he used the diskette on our computers, even though we believe he probably did or why have it at work. I would think most people would not bring a diskette to work if they are not planning to open it at work. Just our opinion. Should he be confronted now is the question or just monitored. She did not find any evidence that he downloaded anything to the hard drive. The MiS mgr. said she did notice when she was using his computer that he deletes all of his history everyday. She said there was no history at all on his computer. I know most people do not have time to do that everyday. That seems suspicious to me. What makes it so difficult is that WE REALLY LIKE THIS EMPLOYEE. HE IS AN EXCELLENT PERFORMER. It would be very embarrassing to confront him. Should we confront or just monitor him? Any liability since it was his personal diskette? Any suggestions would be helpful.
When she put the diskette in, it was several sexual acts between men. This male ee is gay. Our MIS mgr said she immediately took the diskette out and laid it back on the desk. She says she was not meddling, but innocently picked up the diskette to copy this drive. I believe her. The question is whether we should confront this male employee about this, given that we know now, it was his personal diskette. We don't have proof that he used the diskette on our computers, even though we believe he probably did or why have it at work. I would think most people would not bring a diskette to work if they are not planning to open it at work. Just our opinion. Should he be confronted now is the question or just monitored. She did not find any evidence that he downloaded anything to the hard drive. The MiS mgr. said she did notice when she was using his computer that he deletes all of his history everyday. She said there was no history at all on his computer. I know most people do not have time to do that everyday. That seems suspicious to me. What makes it so difficult is that WE REALLY LIKE THIS EMPLOYEE. HE IS AN EXCELLENT PERFORMER. It would be very embarrassing to confront him. Should we confront or just monitor him? Any liability since it was his personal diskette? Any suggestions would be helpful.
Comments
I don't there is anything wrong with confronting the employee about the disk and that it should have been put away, maybe in briefcase, car, anywhere but on his desk. Afterall, I think having disks like that around increases liability.
Good luck.
To pick up a diskette that was "on the desk" is ludicrous. If someone came into my office and did just that, they would be fired. How dare they assume, because it was on the desk, that it would be company property and ok to use? What if the diskette contained confidential employee information? or financial data?
Second, it would be very difficult to prove the disk was his if he were to deny ownership (especially if you have no proof the content was downloaded from work and it was not him who appears in the pictures).
Third, the fact that he erases his history file from his browser's cache every night means nothing. You can set-up any browser to keep history for zero days and reject cookies and not keep offline content. You can also configure most browsers to clear the cache automatically every time you exit or open the program to keep clutter and disk fragmentation to a minimum.
Last but not least, if you are in a client-server environment, the fact that he clears his history file means nothing because the proxy server and/or hardware firewall has a history file of its own which is often much more detailed than the local machine's. So, if there's a trail to be found, it's there.
Otherwise, the only infraction I see here is that he should exercise better judgement in leaving personal items where they can be inadvertently found by others. Imagine the horror if instead of the MIS person, it was an admin looking for the PowerPoint presentation disk for the board of director's meeting about to commence! ARRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
Gene
The MIS person should not be going through a desk looking for diskettes even if it is in plain view but rather have there own supply. Had this happened you would not have a situation.
But since now you are aware of this happening you may want to let the ee know and to make sure personal items are put away or left at home/car.
I would not discipline the ee unless something substantial was found on the computer. I would also not go on a witch hunt trying to find something because they delete their activity for the day.
JMO,
Lisa
Is this different than an X-rated magazine that was in a desk drawer and discovered by accident? I don't think so. The offensive material is at work and your assumptions are probably accurate as to his viewing it using your equipment. I suppose, on the other hand, someone could have just given it to him that day and he intended to take it home.
The advice to look at your policy to determine your company's tolerance level for personal use of company equipment is a start. You have stated this is a good EE, but would your desire to avoid this issue be different if it was a bad EE? The consistent enforcement of policy is important.
Perhaps some verbal coaching as to what is inappropriate in the workplace and what is OK to use the company equipment for. Have you checked emails to make sure your company's name is not traveling around the planet with content that is not acceptable? It is my understanding that a large majority of harassment evidence comes from email and logs of website access. Deleting the history by itself does not do it - the Cookies file will also show sites that have been visited. I would check email and the Temporary Internet Files to determine if you have any exposure.
Finally, you can buy and install software that will track what is happening even if he does delete the history files - but you may be setting a precedent that your company is unable or unwilling to extend to all EEs.
Ignore this at your discretion and peril - it may come back to bite you when the next one comes around.
PS: I don't buy the story about assuming the disc laying there was fair game to use in the IT person's process. That's BS. They were snooping. You have no evidence to suggest the homosexual employee (as if that matters) was using the disc on company time or equipment.
There are a few ways you could approach this in my mind, first you need to discuss with him the disk, what happened, and that obviously it is inappropriate to have this type of material at work. Second discussion is that between the disk, and the fact that he erases his history every day........... it creates a questionable situation that the company will have to look into. Now it is your decision if you want to start looking at his internet use beginning with before or after you have this conversation. By saying Bob, starting Monday we are going to be evaluating your use of the internet, and randomly monitoring your computer usage going forward you can accomplish two things. 1. If he is doing anything inappropriate, it will stop, unless he is stupid. 2. You have corrected the situation without having to fire him. Problem resolution is the end result. Of course you have to make it clear that violating company policy on computer usage, or viewing porn etc, etc will result in termination.
Could he be going to a gay dating site and not want that seen? Would you treat Susan in accounting who is straight any differently for going to her matchmaker site once a day? Same issue, just ....well let's say most would be more comfortable with Susan checking her email on there during her lunch time.
Also you may require him to remove any software that is not authorized that deletes or cleans up the computer, sounds like he might be using this.
I am not saying my thoughts are the way to go, I am just offering up a possible solution.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman
Second, it was inappropriate for the ee to bring that diskette into the office and silly to leave it lying around. However, you have no proof that he was doing anything wrong. Therefore, there is nothing to be done.
You have strong evidence that TWO employees may have committed misconduct and you need to investigate, using a computer expert from outside of your company.
First you have the movie buff who, at a minimum, had rotten judgement to bring it to work and leave it on his desk. And I seriously doubt that he brought computer porn to work unless he intended to look at it on your company's computer. And I wouldn't be surprised if he has used your company's e-mail and/or Internet for porn, maybe a lot. An outside computer expert can easily find this out even without the computer's history files.
Second you have the MIS manager, who may have committed more serious misconduct. Her story of innocently using the diskette is absurd. Any computer person would bring their own disk. Even if it was a business disk containing business documents, she had to think that (a) the disk had enough capacity to hold the new files she wanted to copy, (b) the supervisor wouldn't mind her looking at his files on the disk, and (c)he wouldn't mind her taking the disk out of his office to copy the files onto a co-worker's computer.
I suspect she was snooping, which is a breach of trust for an MIS person who is entrusted with access to all sorts of confidential, personal, and proprietary information. Maybe she wanted to look at the disk because she had seen something suspicious on his computer by using her MIS powers (either legitimately or for improper snooping). I would conduct an immediate investigation with an outside computer expert to make sure she can be trusted with access to your company's entire computer system.
This is for real, right?
James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
Next I would decide its time to evaluate internet usage of all employees and deal with any improprieties that you find including pornography, E-bay shopping, instant messaging, and HR Hero forum time wasting.
I wouldn't address the issue with the employee unless your organization wide review of internet usage revealed innappropriate activity.
Ahhh... its good to be back.
If nothing else, I would document this episode and mark it as a written warning.
I cannot buy the fact that the MIS mgr. has in the past used diskettes without asking and didn't learn enough to bring a blank one along or go and get one. And, yes, she did go through the male ees personal belongings. I would have given her (at the least) a written letter of what is appropriate behavior for someone in her sensitive position.
Even if she was "borrowing" a stray diskette to copy a file to, there was no reason to open any files on there that didn't belong to her. Sounds obvious to me that she was intentionally snooping.
I think you need to deal with the MIS manager, not the employee, who in my opinion, did NOTHING wrong.
Odds are that she clicked on a file to open it, but we can't know for sure without an investigation.
Meanwhile, GLC, are you comfortable knowing that she has access to every confidential computer file and e-mail message in HR and the rest of the company? And when these two ees are up for promotion in a year or two, are you going to totally ignore this incident?
James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
P.S. I've had a lot of strange things happen since I've worked here. One time I went into an employee's office who was about to be fired (and yes I was snooping, but it was justified), and I found a picture of our CEO glued to a voo do doll, with pins stuck in its head. The CEO was with me at the time so he was obviously taken aback. I guess she was taking her anger out on him. True story.
SIGN ME UP! I NEED SOME EXCITEMENT! I VOLUNTEER TO COME DEAL WIT THESE ISSUES COMPARED WITH THE STUFF I'M BURIED IN NOW
Gene
I would think, at a minimum, the male EE should get the same level of verbal coaching. An unlabeled disk out in plain view might take legs and show up in surprising places. What if the CEO was having some sort of emergency and needed a disk - happened to walk by this desk on the way to the supply room and just grabbed it out of convenience - thinking that any disk in the house is subject to his/her need and assuming that she/he has access to all company confidential information. I know this is far-fetched, but true circumstances are often more fantastic than anything made-up.
I have heard of policies in a company that let all EEs know that their personal work space(s) are subject to search (various reason behind this) and that they should not have an expectation of privacy. This is a workplace, not a home space.