The YouGov survey of 2,000 email users found that Londoners were
also more inclined to use email for backstabbing, with 19%
admitting that they had emailed a colleague to criticise someone
else.
Twenty-six percent of Londoners admitted that they would delete
an email that they didn’t want others to find out about, as
compared to an average 16% across the rest of the country, while
only 1% of Londoners had reported a colleague for misusing email –
half the national average.
“It’s very interesting to see such a wide variance of email
practice across the British public,” said Jon Lee, Clearswift’s
CEO. “But what these figures don’t reveal is the repercussions from
sending an ill-judged or deliberately offensive mail. Businesses
are opening themselves up to serious breaches of regulations if
they allow such mails to slip through.”
The survey found that stress was a factor, with 25% of all
employees who use email admitting that their guard slips when under
pressure at work. In addition there were also marked age and gender
related differences in attitudes to email.
According to Clearswift, younger employees who use email at work
are five times as likely as their older colleagues (over 50) to
send emails they would later regret when they have been out late
the night before.
The survey also found that men are far more prone to corporate
skulduggery than their female counterparts – 5% of male employees
admitted to deliberately emailing intellectual property or private
information outside their company, whereas the figure for females
was only 1%.
“This statistic is particularly concerning,” said Lee. “There’s
a blatant disregard for the very information which gives their
employers competitive advantage and keeps the respondents in a
job.”
Emma Grossmith, an employment law specialist with Pinsent
Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, agrees that employers
cannot afford to ignore email and computer misuse. "Apart from the
potential disaster of confidential information being leaked,
employers run a real risk of being sued if emails sent to or from
their employees are discriminatory or defamatory," she said.
She added: "the only real way for employers to protect
themselves is by having and enforcing a clear policy for staff on
how electronic systems are to be used and monitored and to train
staff on that policy."
