The best way to get e-mails skipped over: Bury the important info. Key points should go where recipients are most likely to see them — the subject line.

The subject line should include specifics, and if applicable, an action step. People will be more likely to open an e-mail if they know there’s something they need to do. And if they don’t, they’ll at least see the most important point without opening it.

Some pointers for the body of the message:

1. Put the key stuff first — Once the e-mail’s opened, no one will keep reading if the beginning is full of fluff.
2. Use lists – When you have a lot of ideas to get across, it might be easier for the audience if they’re broken down into bullet points.
3. Be careful with the “urgent” flag — If that label is used too often, it quickly loses its effect. Recipients will remember.
4. Proofread — This is an important step that’s easy to forget. A good way to remind yourself: Don’t fill in the “To” field until the e-mail’s done. That way you won’t accidentally click send until you’ve finished and read over the message.

In addition to the official performance review, a court may look at e-mails related to a fired employee’s performance. That could be both good and bad for companies.

If the content of the e-mails is consistent with the company’s decision to fire the employee, a court might look at that favorably. But if a manager repeatedly praised the employee through e-mail, that’s a different story.

The best bet? Managers should understand that e-mail creates a permanent record and that they shouldn’t write anything they wouldn’t want to print out and keep in the employee’s personnel file.

An employer gave cell phones to a group of employees so they could communicate via text messages. The contract with the wireless provider said the company would be charged an overage fee if any phone sent more than a certain number of messages in a given month. Employees had to reimburse the company for those charges.

After one employee went over his limit four times, the company obtained copies of his messages from the wireless provider. The transcripts revealed the employee was sending a lot of personal messages — in fact, many of them were sexually explicit.

The employee was disciplined, but sued, claiming his privacy was violated when the vendor provided — and the company read — his personal messages.

A jury ruled in favor of the company, before an appeals court reversed the decision. The reason: The messages weren’t the company’s property because they were stored by a third-party vendor (unlike company e-mail, which is often held on the company’s own network).

Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. We’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

Cite: Quon v. Arch Wireless

There’s a misconception that e-mail can ever be truly private. As this recent case shows, there’s always a chance that messages will find their way into the hands of unintended recipients.

A female sales manager at a car dealership was involved in a long-running dispute with a male co-worker. The woman routinely closed more sales than the man — she felt his belief that a women shouldn’t earn more money than him was the root of the problem.

One day, the two got into a verbal fight that culminated in the man calling her a “bitch” and walking out of the dealership. Rather than let the employee quit, the company called him and convinced him to come back to work.

The woman somehow gained access to the man’s e-mail account without his permission. She stumbled across an e-mail the co-worker sent to another employee, talking about her in insulting and sexually charged language (we won’t reprint it here — as the company itself admitted, the e-mail was “vulgar and offensive”).

She showed her boss a copy of the message, and the two employees got a verbal reprimand.

Shortly after, the dealership announced a new payment plan for sales managers. Under the new system, the managers would share a portion of their commissions. As the female employee saw it, the plan was basically a pay cut for her and a raise for the man, since she regularly received more in commissions than him.

That was the last straw for her. She quit and sued the company for gender bias and sexual harassment.

The company claimed the new pay plan was just an effort to save money and argued there was no evidence of any discrimination or harassment.

Regarding the e-mail, the dealership said the woman was never meant to see the message, so it couldn’t be seen as harassment.

The court disagreed. The e-mail showed what kind of environment existed in the workplace, and it didn’t matter if the offensive message was sent directly to her.

That, combined with the company’s tolerance when the male co-worker used a sexually derogatory term during their fight, sank the dealership’s case.

The lesson for managers: E-mail rarely stays private, and anything written can leave a permanent trail of evidence for an employee’s legal claims.

The e-mail in this case was something that obviously should never be said or written in the first place, but even seemingly innocuous comments can come back to haunt the company.

Cite: EEOC v. PVNF, LLC

Over the course of five years, an employee had a number of medical problems and took time off under both FMLA and the company’s short-term disability plan.

The company’s policy allows employees to take disability leave with a guarantee their jobs will be held open for 90 days (which, of course, is roughly the amount of time employees can take under FMLA).

When one of the employee’s periods of leave lasted longer than 90 days, the company told her it had to fill her position with someone. When she was ready to work again, she was offered a job at a lower level.

Sounds like the company did everything right: It held the woman’s position for her until she ran out of FMLA leave.

But she sued anyway, claiming she was retaliated against for taking FMLA. It turned out her old job was still open when she came back (though the employee never asked about reinstatement).

In court, the employee’s lawyer dug an e-mail her manager sent to HR explaining he wanted to hire someone else. He said the employee had taken “extended leave of absences for the past four or five years. Therefore, this has become almost a part-time position.”

The company tried to have the case thrown out, but after reading that e-mail, the judge concluded the company could have given the employee her old job back but didn’t, in retaliation for her FMLA leaves.

Cite: Keim v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation

With e-mail being introduced as evidence in more court cases, disgruntled employees seemingly could have a wealth of comments to potentially support their claims. Where do courts draw the line?

In one recent case, a 62-year-old employee was let go as part of a reduction in force. He thought his age was the reason he was laid off.

In court, the employee pointed to a series of e-mails between two managers about the possibility of an age bias claim. One e-mail discussing the upcoming termination ended with “P.S. I just cannot shake this feeling that we’re doomed!”

According to the employee, that proved age was a factor and the higher-ups were looking for ways to cover their tracks. The company, on the other hand, argued the managers were just concerned the employee would sue — which is exactly what happened.

The judge sided with the company, ruling that talking about a possible lawsuit doesn’t prove there actually was bias.

Avoid these conversations

The company got the suit tossed, but not without a lot of hassle — and legal fees. Best bet for managers: Discuss legal concerns in person only. As this case shows, employees may try to interpret what they read in an e-mail in a way that supports a nefarious claim.

Other e-mail conversations managers should avoid:

1. Complaints about legally protected actions (for example, “I can’t believe she’s taking leave again“)
2. Talks about whether or not the company should contact an attorney
3. Negative performance reviews, and
4. Discussions about salaries, bonuses or promotions.

Cite: Geiger v. Tower Automotive

Bob Grant, staff writer for The Scientist, tells a story of an e-mail he received.

The message invited Grant to speak at an upcoming conference on global health care. The e-mailer listed the names of several other experts who were signed on to speak. He was asked to simply respond to the conference organizer, who would take care of his travel arrangements.

The problem: When Grant contacted the venue where the event was supposedly being held, an employee said no such conference was scheduled for the specified dates.

Grant also got in touch with the other listed speakers, who were real experts in the field, but they had never heard about the conference.

Grant decided not to sign up, of course. He assumes the purpose of the scam is to dupe folks into turning over personal data (passport info, credit card numbers for a hotel room deposit, etc.) as part of the conference registration.

This is a highly personalized scam that some in your company may need to watch for. Remind employees: The best approach is to follow Grant’s lead and research the conference before turing over any personal information.

Most employers keep an eye on employees’ Internet and e-mail activity. But doing it the wrong way can get the company hit with an invasion of privacy claim.

The conventional wisdom: Anything an employee does on company-owned equipment can be monitored.

But the conventional wisdom is wrong in many cases, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. As personal and professional lives continue to overlap, courts are more likely these days to stand up for employees’ privacy, even while they’re at work.

Take these recent cases:

• One company used a keylogging application (software that records everything an employee types) to monitor computer use. An employee sued after he learned his manager had read his personal e-mail. The employee won (Cite: Brahmana v. Lembo).
• An employee won $400,000 in court after her boss read e-mails she sent from a personal account. The employer argued it didn’t know about or authorize the snooping, but the company was held liable because the manager was acting to “further the interests” of his employer (Cite: Van Alstyne v. Electronic Scriptorium Limited).
• While investigating a discrimination claim, a company found e-mails the employee had sent to her attorney at work. Though they contained info that would’ve helped the company, the court ordered that they be deleted because the messages were protected by attorney-client privilege (Cite: Stengart v. Loving Care Agency).

In most cases, whether monitoring is legal or not comes down to one question: Who owns the e-mail?

In other words, are the messages stored on the company’s network or by a third party (as is the case with personal accounts, like Yahoo and Gmail)?

While employers are normally within their rights to monitor employees’ work e-mail, courts will usuaully draw the line when the data’s stored by a third party.

Also, keep in mind:

• Have a clear-cut computer use policy – Employees can also win in court when they show they have a “reasonable expectation” of privacy. So inform all employees that their Web use at work will be monitored.
• Train managers – Some supervisors will go to great lengths when they suspect an employee of wrongdoing. But they need to come to HR first, before they conduct an impromptu investigation that becomes an invasion of privacy.

Sometimes, it’s better to talk in person — or to just not say anything at all.

Here are 4 e-mail tips for managers:

1. Look out for jokes – It’s up to managers to be on the lookout for potential offensive jokes and forwards sent by employees. Those e-mails may seem innocent to some, but anything potentially offensive must be stopped. For example, a subsidiary of Chevron settled a case for $2.5 million, based in part on an e-mail sent by an employee titled “25 reasons beer is better than women.”
2. Don’t send secrets – There’s rarely such a thing as a secret sent over e-mail. Messages can be accidentally or intentionally forwarded to others, printed and left on the machine, etc. If something needs to stay private, say it in person.
3. Avoid suspicious language – Using phrases like “Delete this e-mail,” “I probably shouldn’t be e-mailing this,” and “Should we get a lawyer?” is the easiest way to see that a judge gets to read the message.
4. Cool down – It’s good advice in any situation, not just at the office: Never send an e-mail when you’re angry.

The majority (78%) of execs have mistakenly sent an e-mail to the wrong address, according to a survey of marketing executives by The Creative Group, an advertising and marketing staffing firm.

The respondents also reported the biggest e-mail gaffes they’ve ever seen — or made — at work, including:

1. sending someone’s salary information to the entire company
2. giving a job offer to the wrong person
3. writing a nasty comment about a supervisor, then accidentally sending it to said supervisor
4. calling a co-worker an “idiot” to the entire company
5. accidentally sending an internal memo about “restroom etiquette” to a potential client.

The Creative Group offers these tips for avoiding e-mail embarrassment:

1. Don’t multi-task while writing important e-mail messages. Give writing your undivided attention.
2. Keep the “To:” box blank until the end, then careful choose the distribution list.
3. Review it on a big screen when you can, instead of sending an important message from a smartphone or other hand-held device.
4. Never send an e-mail when you’re angry. You can try writing, but wait until you’ve calmed down to send it.