Here’s the typical dangerous scenario:

Two employees have company-issued cell phones. One employee uses the company phone to send harassing text messages to the other employee’s company-issued phone. The receiving employee files a harassment complaint.

What’s the employer’s responsibility?

The various state laws indicate that electronic messages, such as e-mail, are considered evidence in harassment cases, and must be retained by the employer — to support or refute the charge. Following that ruling, most legal observers agree the term “electronic messages” also covers text messages, meaning an employer could be responsible for storing and producing such messages when they go from company phone to company phone.

That’s another headache no employer or HR department needs, so what’s the solution? Ban texting altogether? That seems extreme and impractical, althought least one employer in Florida has done that.

But the more practical option is to develop a policy about employee-to-employee texting, especially during work hours. Employees should understand, via the policy, that such texting should be done only as a business necessity, and that employees will be held responsible for offensive or harassing text messaages.

Here are tips from the book “It’s Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been,” by BJ Gallagher:

Giving

• Provide examples of the problem behavior.  For instance, “You shouted at two customers yesterday.” That’s better than “You have a bad attitude with customers.”
• Solicit questions and comments.  Be wary of the employee who broods quietly. That’s often a sign of resentment, not acceptance.  Ask leading questions that draw the employee out and give you some clues to the employee’s thinking. Example: “Tell me what you disagree with and why.”
• Get a commitment to change.  And try to put that commitment in measurable terms. Example: “So, you agree that you’ll be on time every day for the next month.”
• Schedule follow-up. Make it clear that this isn’t a one-and-done deal — that you’ll be checking back to see that there’s been a change and all commitments have been met.

Receiving

• Ask for or acknowledge examples. If the boss says, “I hear you’ve missed a few deadlines lately,” either ask for specifics or acknowledge that, yes, you’re guilty as charged.
• Ask for a chance to do better. Outline what you’re going to do to improve and when you’d like the boss to revisit your performance.
• Say “thanks.” Look at it this way: Negative feedback is a sign that someone cares and is interested in your improvement. Yes, there do seem to be those times when the feedback seems pointless. Still, a thank you is in order.

An oil field operator was fired for allegedly looking at pornography while at work. According to the company, he did the browsing on a computer located in the break room that about 200 employees shared.

Workers each had their own username and password, and were required to sign in to use the machine and sign out when they were finished finished.

While running a virus scan, an IT staffer discovered porn sites had been accessed under the employee’s username –  including “hundreds of prohibited websites” over the period of two days. The staffer told the employee’s manager, who verified the employee was scheduled to work on those two days.

He was fired for violating the company’s computer use policy, which strictly prohibited the downloading of any offensive content.

The employee, 57 years old at the time, was replaced by a 43-year-old employee. He sued for age discrimination.

He claimed there was no proof he’d actually downloaded the porn — he saw the company’s log of his alleged Web activity and pointed out that many of the sites were visited outside of the times he was scheduled to work.

The judge didn’t buy his argument and ruled in favor of the company. Why? Two reasons:

First was the way the computer policy was written. It forbid users from sharing or even writing down their passwords and said that “System Users are responsible for all transactions made using their passwords.”

Second, there was no evidence the company was discriminating. Even if they were wrong, the manager and the IT department reasonably believed the employee had been viewing pornography at work and fired him for that, not because of his age.

The lesson: When employees share computers, it can be tough to monitor improper usage. But one good way to make it easier is to write a policy prohibiting password sharing and often behaviors that make them easy to steal.

Cite: Cervantez v. KMGP Services Company, Inc.

According to one study cited in the Harvard Business Review, men tend to be equal opportunity bullies — targeting men and women about equally. Not so with women, who target other women in more than seven out of every 10 instances.

Some other findings:

• Instances of verbal abuse are more commonly committed by men (57%) than women (41%), but
• Women (54%) are more likely than men (41%) to engage in more subtle forms of bullying, such as sabotaging another’s work, and
• Women (50%) are more likely than men (45%) to abuse their authority over subordinates.

The study goes on to issue a warning to HR managers: Left unchecked, bullying becomes the norm as a business culture. That is, managers and subordinates begin to think of bullying as a standard way of doing business. And in such environments, productivity invariably goes down and turnover goes up.

Managing workers’ online activity is always a headache, but it gets worse this time of year — and when everyone’s being asked to do more with less. How big a problem is it?

A new study by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) found that:

• 63% of workers will do at least some of their gift buying on the job using their workplace computers and systems.
• 46% of IT bosses said company loses an average of at least $3,000  in productivity per employee from online holiday shopping at work.
• 55% of IT bosses reported that their company permits workers to shop online, but has no strategy for educating them about the risks.

Do you need a policy?
Lost productivity during the holiday season is a major concern for many businesses – from employees who take time off from work to shop in person to those who shop during working hours from their company PC, especially during “Cyber Monday,”  — the Monday after Thanksgiving and the biggest online shopping day of the year.

Now might be the time to re-state the organization’s policy about acceptable computer usage.” There are also software tools that can help your IT team monitor which sites workers are visiting.

If you’re considering monitoring technology, here’s data from CareerBuilder that may help you decide:

• $580 million: the estimated amount employers lost in productivity on Cyber Monday in 2008.
• 43% of those planning to shop from work on Cyber Monday will spend at least one hour doing so and 23% said they shop two hours or more from their workplace computer.

The story began when Gambino got arrested in his native Sicily for dumping hazardous wastes. Found guilty, the man served part of his sentence in a Sicilian prison and then was released to serve the rest of his term under home confinement. Here’s where the story gets really interesting.

According to Italian media reports, after a few days at home, Gambino showed up at a local police station and asked to be returned to prison. The criminal explained to the cops that he’d rather be in jail than be stuck at home 24/7 with his wife — who, according to her hubby, continually nagged him about household finances.

Well, we can assume that the authorities in Sicily really know their stuff when it comes to punishment: They ordered Gambino to serve out the rest of his time at home.

The practice of “friending” on social-networking sites can be a legally dangerous one when it involves a supervisor and a subordinate. Plus, a lot of subordinates think it’s creepy.

The seemingly innocent practice of  sending friend requests to staff via Facebook, Twitter and other sites can trigger a slew of legal claims, including harassment, discrimination or wrongful termination, as well as touch off complaints of favoritism if the boss friends only a select person or persons.

That’s the warning from attorney Michael Schmidt on law.com.

Here’s the source of the problem: Social-networking sites typically are packed with personal information. So, what happens if a friending boss learns TMI — too much info — about a subordinate? That opens the door for an employee complaint that the boss made work decisions, such as promotions, based on the personal information.

The example given by Schmidt:

• Suppose an employee is a member of a gay-rights group.
• Then suppose the friending boss fires the employee because of performance issues.
• The employee then could argue that the boss used the personal information as a basis for the termination.

That’s just one example of many: religious affiliation, age,  political affiliation, health problems. All could serve as a basis for a lawsuit should the supervisor take an adverse action against the employee.

If that’s not enough, consider that in a survey by staffing firm Office Team, 47% of respondents said they don’t want to be friended by their bosses.

The message to supervisors: Don’t do it.

In the wake of the Great Economic Meltdown of ‘08 — and the cheating that preceded it — business schools are considering an ethics test before sending grads into the real world. Would you pass it?

The test — based on real-life situations — has been developed by Babson College, Yale and the Aspen Institute, and is being considered for use by 80 colleges nationwide. Ready for it? Here goes (answers at the bottom):

Scenario #1

You’re a rising executive just promoted to corporate controller. Shortly after you land the new job, several senior executives pressure you to distort the company’s restructuring charges in a way that would be misleading but not criminal.

What do you do?

1. Politely explain to the senior execs that you won’t stand for fudging the numbers.
2. Modify the charges. Since it’s not illegal, you can draw the line later when you have more experience in the job.
3. Research what the company has done in similar situations in the past and follow suit.
4. Go over the senior execs’ heads right to the CEO.

Scenario #2

You join a nonprofit firm in a junior accounting role. As you review the year’s corporate donations, you quickly realize that no standard procedure exists to determine the value of in-kind donations (gifts in the form of goods or services rather than cash). Some of your most prolific donors inflate valuations to deceive the IRS. Your overworked executive director makes a point of emphasizing relationships above data.

What do you do?

1. Nothing. What the donors tell the IRS is their business and your organization can’t afford to alienate them.
2. Bring up the problem at the next staff meeting. Since you’re in a junior role, you can only do so much.
3. Find an ally in a senior position and keep pushing for a solution.
4. Develop your own system to value each major in-kind donation in time for next tax season, and present what you’ve done to the senior executives.

Scenario #3

You’re a junior employee at a large investment bank. Hours before a client meeting, a portfolio manager tells you to review the portfolio of one of the bank’s smallest customers and find a new benchmark that will make it look like the portfolio had performed better than it really had. You know that the client remains with the bank as a favor to a friend who works there.

What do you do?

1. Point out that misleading the client risks getting the manager in trouble, and the client isn’t going anywhere. Be frank: underperformance happens in uncertain markets.
2. Don’t take a chance with a manager who asks you to lie. Immediately take your concerns to another manager.
3. Find the new benchmark. As long as you footnote it, you haven’t done anything illegal.
4. Duck the request to mislead the client and prepare a presentation that encourages the client to focus on the future.

Answers

Scenario #1. Correct choice: 4.

Several arguments could justify inaction: You’re too new; you need to wait until you’re more settled into the role and have the trust and confidence of the senior execs. Plus, raving about ethics to the team is a sure way to establish antagonistic relationships only a few days into the job.

On the other hand, if you wait to speak up until you’re fully entrenched, it could be much more difficult to reverse course. In the real-life situation that inspired the case study, the comptroller used his newness in the position as a way to break with the status quo. He went directly to the CEO with a new guiding vision for the finance department emphasizing its commitment to integrity. He focused on wanting to ensure the long-term survival of the company and rather than ask, the comptroller simply assumed that he and the CEO would be on the same side. It worked; the CEO supported his plan and in the process the comptroller successfully established his authority in the new role.

Scenario #2 Correct choice: 3.

In this kind of a scenario, junior employees typically can’t get past the feeling of powerlessness, says Mary Gentile, a Babson College researcher who helped develop the ethics curriculum. They’re low on the totem pole, so they “question their standing, their judgment, and their legitimacy” in taking a stand against unethical behavior that has become part of the company culture, she says.

In this case, the new hire decided to use his naïveté to his advantage. He approached the executive director and simply asked, “How do we standardize our donation valuations here?” The director never did act on his concerns, and soon left the nonprofit. The junior employee finally took his questions to the lead accountant and an outside auditor. He worked with them to establish an “average cost per box” formula the company would use if donors didn’t submit a written audit. Since it was a formal policy change, donors did not see it as a personal affront.

Scenario #3 Correct choice: 4.

You could justify not saying anything because the bank creates the benchmark and as long as you footnote it, you’ve done nothing illegal. Plus, given the size and relative importance of the portfolio, in all likelihood the manager simply overlooked it. If you refuse to lie on moral grounds, you’ll offend the manager and he will just ask another associate to take care of it anyway.

The woman in the case tried a different approach. She explained to the portfolio manager that she wouldn’t have time to provide an analysis for the new set of numbers before the meeting. Instead, she offered to provide data explaining the portfolio’s underperformance, which the manager could use to suggest a more suitable investment plan for the client. To her surprise, he agreed.

That’s the name of a device being marketed by Philips Electronics. We’ll let the company literature describe the purpose of the device:

It aims at … detecting stress levels so that wearers can know when to take a “time-out,” wind down and reconsider their actions.

The company originally designed the EmoBracelet for stock traders who might let their emotions get the best of them, but it’s easy to see how the applications can be broadened to HR managers and others.

Anyway, here’s how it works: The EmoBracelet senses emotional ups and downs and transmits messages to something called the EmoBowl (no, we’re not making this up). The EmoBowl then lights up in a range of colors from yellow to red, indicating the intensity — and danger zones — of the EmoBracelet wearer’s emotions.

In other words, when your EmoBowl turns red, it’s time to walk away and calm down before saying anything or making a decision.

Where was the EmoBracelet when HR Morning needed it? Like maybe just before the second marriage.

Question
We’re thinking about having a question on our job application asking if the applicant has ever been charged with a crime.

Is it legal to ask? Can the question cause problems?

Answer
It’s usually a bad idea to ask if an applicant has been charged with a crime. That’s the word from employment-law attorney Larry Peikes. Plus, some states make it illegal to ask about arrests or detentions that didn’t result in a conviction.

Weeding out applicants on this basis could expose the employer to a discrimination claim because members of certain racial and ethnic minorities tend to be arrested with greater frequency than nonminorities.

The safer approach to criminal background checks is to limit your questions to those about convictions and pleas of guilty or nolo contendre.