A total of 46 states have cyber-stalking laws on the books, including penalties for harassment via text message. What’s an employer’s responsibility for monitoring text messages and acting on potentially offensive communication?
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.
