e-skills UK Guide

Email policy & procedures

Creating an email policy

If you have one or two people working in your business that have access to email it is important that you supply them with guidelines on what is acceptable use of company email. Although this may be seen as a bit excessive, it provides you both with guidelines that should ensure a productive work environment.

As a business owner or director it is obviously important that you set an example with your own use of email.

Why should I bother with an email policy?

A good way to think of email is that everything that is released from your company email account can be held to represent you and your values – and no small business would want to be tarnished following the inappropriate use of email.

• If you do not provide people with guidance they could accidentally damage your image.
• You may find guidance could improve people’s productivity.
• Unless you have an email policy, you will not be legally able to monitor emails – even if they’ve been sent under your business name!
• Emails are subject to UK law. An email policy is a useful document that will help educate employees on good email practice and what is allowed on company premises.

An email policy should not cost you much money to implement. There are many examples on the internet that you can adapt for your own usage, and that may only take a couple of hours to complete.

What should my email policy contain?

The precise content of your policy will vary, depending on who has access to email and the type of work they are expected to do. As a guideline the contents should include;

• A declaration that email is provided as a privilege that you are allowed to withdraw or restrict at any time.
• A declaration that use of email is subject to allowing your business to review the content of any sent or received email at any time.
• You might also want to lay down policies about:
  • Personal use.
  • Authorisation needed before sending emails.
  • Responsibility for filing copies of sent and received emails.
  • Responsibility for backing up email databases.

Unacceptable email behaviour

What may be unacceptable to one business may be acceptable to another. As a guideline here are some generally unacceptable behaviours when using email;

• Use of company communications systems to set up personal businesses or send chain letters.
• Forwarding of company confidential messages to external locations.
• Distributing, disseminating or storing images, text or materials that might be considered indecent, pornographic, obscene or illegal.
• Distributing, disseminating or storing images, text or materials that might be considered offensive or abusive, in that the context is a personal attack, sexist or racist.
• Accessing copyrighted information in a way that violates the copyright.
• Breaking into the system or unauthorised use of a password/mailbox.
• Broadcasting unsolicited personal views on social, political, religious or other non-business related matters.
• Transmitting unsolicited commercial or advertising material.
• Undertaking deliberate activities that waste staff effort or networked resources.
• Introducing any form of computer virus into the corporate network.

Managing unacceptable email behaviour

If a member of your staff has violated your email policy then you will need to manage the situation as per their contract of employment. As a small business you will not have a large HR department so you may need to get advice from an external legal company if the problem is significant.

Further help and advice

If you feel that you need help or advice in drafting an email policy you may want to speak to an experienced advisor or consultant. For more details take a look at the choosing an IT consultancy supplier guide.