Yahoo Finance Major warning as bosses infiltrate workers' private chats: 'They will'
Australian experts have issued a warning after a young man's private messages almost cost him his job.
Workers have been warned to be careful of the messages they send to their colleagues on work-based platforms as they could come back to bite them. Owen Willis detailed an experience a few years ago when he was just getting started in the corporate world that nearly cost him his job.
Roxanne Hart from Hart & Co Lawyers told Yahoo Finance workplaces can penalise you or even send you packing for good if they stumble across inappropriate messages. She said that's because workers have to uphold what's called a "duty of good faith and fidelity" to their employer, which can be broken if you're caught bad-mouthing your boss with your co-workers.
Willis said he narrowly escaped the sack but one of his co-workers was fired because of their conversations with each other.
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"I had this colleague... we would have a laugh and a joke and we always message on Skype," he said in a video.
"We would just chat on there all day, work stuff and then non-work stuff. Like, if someone had annoyed me, I'd be like, 'Guess what this person's done?' And I had no idea that these could be read by HR [or] your manager."
One topic of conversation that would pop up a lot was the dress sense of a female colleague. Willis said she never dressed appropriately for a corporate job but never got in trouble.
While he never commented on what she was wearing to his colleagues on the work chat platform, another person would bring it up regularly.
The messages were eventually found by HR and Willis and his co-worker were hauled into disciplinary hearings. The young worker said he was spared from the chopping block because he was only 17 at the time, but the colleague was sacked.
"Just be careful if you want to slag off your coworkers, make sure you do it on Whatsapp or iMessage or something that can't be tracked by your employer because they can and they will read them," he said.
How does the law work in Australia?
It's fairly common for workers to chat amongst themselves and sometimes it's work-related and other times it's not.
When it becomes a problem is if it brings your employer into disrepute.
But you can get brought before HR even if you're communicating with a colleague on a non-work platform.
"These are all like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp group chats" Hart said.
"If you do it on the employer's systems, they've got even better grounds to terminate you because it's probably a bit more obvious that you're in breach of their tech and communication policies."
She said it also doesn't have to be a chat with multiple people. If you're negatively talking about your manager, management, company or colleague with just one person then you can also find yourself in trouble.
Is it legal for bosses to spy on you?
While workplace surveillance "is broadly illegal" in Australia, Professor Peter Leonard said there are exceptions where it can be allowed.
“The Workplace Surveillance Act NSW mandates that companies provide employees with a 14-day notice if they intend to use surveillance in the workplace," he explained to Yahoo Finance.
"This includes activities such as monitoring computer keystrokes, recording conversations, and optical surveillance.
"If you are working from home and you are using equipment or online services provided at the expense of the employer, then, with prior notice, the employer can undertake surveillance."
In Victoria, the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 requires workers' consent for their private conversations to be monitored while in Queensland, there's the Invasion of Privacy Act that regulates listening devices and it can be an offence to audio record a private conversation you are not involved in.
The penalty will depend on what's said
Whatever penalty is dished out by your employer will all depend on the content of your chat history.
Hart told Yahoo Finance workplaces will usually give workers a formal warning if rogue messages are discovered, but if the worker keeps doing it they can get sacked.
It also doesn't necessarily have to be a negative sentiment to management and can be anything that could bring the business into disrepute.
But in Australia, there are grounds for instant dismissal in certain cases.
"There's some extra laws that apply where employers have a duty to prevent their employees from getting sexually harassed and there's workplace rules like discrimination and health and safety laws and whatnot," the lawyer revealed.
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