HR advice? Manager logging into email account

[AnnO'Neemus]

If someone leaves an organisation, wouldn't it be usual:

- for IT to just create an out of office message saying the person had left the organisation and to contact x or y instead?

- and/or for IT to just set up a forward so that incoming emails to the former employee's email account were diverted to the departmental inbox or colleague or manager?

Is it just me or is it weird if you leave an organisation and then you find out that your former line manager has asked IT to access your old email account, as in asked them to change the password so that your former manager can log into your old email account and access all your old incoming/sent emails?

I've never had that before and think it's a bit off. Every other place I've ever worked at, if someone leaves their account is disabled/deleted or emails sent to their account receive a bounce back saying they've left and who to contact instead. I've never known a situation where managers have had the password changed so that they can keep logging into the leaver's account.

 

[keybored]

Doesn't seem that surprising, and I'd find it safest to assume all company emails are being monitored by management even while I was still employed at that company.

 

[Ax^]

you have worked for some polite companies

always been sure its quite likely to have been retained for quite a bit at least

 

[Guineveretoo]

I think it is common practice to access someone's work email account after they leave. Sorry.

 

[colacubes]

I’m currently dealing with this due to a colleague dying suddenly. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can have any expectation of privacy on work email once you leave. Only way to be sure is to delete stuff as far as possible before you do.

 

[Looby]

I can imagine that happening in lots of places tbh. I don’t know that it happens where I work but if someone left with no notice or was sick long term I can imagine management needing to get into their emails.

There’s nothing private in mine and there’s usually several people copied in to anything important.

 

[Spymaster]

It’s perfectly reasonable that the company would access an employees business email after they leave. There shouldn’t be anything on there that you’d have a problem with them seeing. You should always treat your work email as if your boss sees everything you send and receive anyway.

 

[nyxx]

Doesn’t it mean that someone in the company you’d left was able to send emails purporting / appearing to be from you after you’d left?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I also work on the basis that e-mails on my work e-mail account can be seen by management if they really want.

The e-mails belong to the organisation, not you - in public sector, they could be subject of a freedom of information request, or there could be legal arguments about (on one hand) alleged harrassment, or on another track could be taken as entering in to a contract or something, so I can understand an organisation wanting to have access to ex-employee's e-mails rather than them disappear in to an electronic black hole.

Fairly sure there is case law about this, but I've not come up with anything definitive.

Conversely, if I've had e-mail exchanges with management that I might want to refer to 'later' then I will take either a printed copy or e-mail it to home, in case they 'accidentally' get wiped by the system.

Yes, it's usual that if someone leaves, a re-direct / out of office message is set up to either forward e-mails or ask sender to contact someone else, rather than have someone else log in to the account and read incoming e-mails. If they are sending outgoing e-mails in former employee's name then that's more weird.

I had a situation in current job where someone else assumed that I'd be able to read a lengthy e-mail exchange with my predecessor (I couldn't as it's an e-mail address in my name not job title) and it took a bit of disentangling because they thought i had ignored it...

 

[Ax^]

Doesn’t it mean that someone in the company you’d left was able to send emails purporting / appearing to be from you after you’d left?

false representation

not saying it has not been done

 

[mx wcfc]

Agree with most of the above. It's work, not you. It's a basic rule not to have private stuff on work email, (Ok the odd email from your mum asking you to come over on Saturday isn't an issue, but ffs, just use your personal email) just like I don't come on here or fb or anything else from my work laptop. If you leave, of course work will need to see emails sent to you for work things.

Your account will have been closed when you leave so no-one can send emails purporting to be from you, unless someone has hacked something, or your IT dept/procedures are seriously shit. Locking leavers out of systems is essential.

 

[mx wcfc]

Just to emphasise this, someone senior to me left a few months ago. I have access to her emails . It's work. If a client says "X said is would only cost £300, I need to check that before I do a piece of work that will cost £500.

It's not "your" email account.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

another strand to it is that organisation ought to have some sort of e-mail / internet use policy so that (in theory at least) you have a vague idea where you stand

 

[mx wcfc]

another strand to it is that organisation ought to have some sort of e-mail / internet use policy so that (in theory at least) you have a vague idea where you stand

Yes, absolutely. But in the absence of that, fear the worst!

And even if there is a policy, assume they can see everything you do on any work device.

 

[Saul Goodman]

If they no longer work there then it's likely a gdpr issue.
But you should never put anything in email that you wouldn't say in public.

 

[bellaozzydog]

I use a separate laptop for personal at work

Work computer and email address are only for non sweary, non angry, business like emails

I clear down the work email frequently leaving only ass covering emails and essential info

 

[cybershot]

It’s pretty standard for a manager to gain access to an email account of someone who leaves especially if it’s sudden and there’s stuff in there that needs to be picked up.
Also happens if someone goes on long term sick.
Not to sound like a broken record but the email address belongs to the company not you and the IT policy that’s part of your employment contract probably outlines this.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I work in IT, it's not best practice to reset password, your account should be disabled and licenses removed, but it's fairly standard occurrence to get access to the emails via additional mailbox setup to see if any new stuf comes in and find old emails relevant to whatever you were working on.

HR usually has to approve but it's not like they ever say no.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Yeah, once you leave the employer can gain access to the account. Where I work the principle is that staff have a reasonable right to privacy (including personal use of work e-mail), and managers cannot access the account without authorisation. For example, they can get access if there is a conduct investigation that involves some issues around use of IT, etc.

When someone leaves the account can be accessed by managers where required, with some approvals required, but that's quite rare in my experience. Individual e-mail accounts are normally deleted without ever being looked at by anyone else.

I've been given access to ex-employees accounts before to look for specific messages that the business needs. To be honest, it's an incredibly tedious job going through thousands and thousands of e-mails trying to find what you're looking for, and you have to try and do it as quickly as you can so you can get on with other stuff.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Depends on the setup.
When using AD, rights can be assigned and ownership of objects (in this case an email account) can be transferred.

However, if done properly, with relevant policies in place, this shouldnt be a problem. It's normal, any policies signed at the beginning of employment (security policy etc) should outline this.

What is not normal is to lose emails from a corporate system and claim they are not recoverable. See, Grenfell enquiry. Thats bullshit.

 

[alex_]

It’s very common where an employee deals with contractual issues or with customers or suppliers

 

[Treacle Toes]

It's common. Each time I leave somewhere I simply clear any personal stuff from a work email folders and empty the trash can.

 

[alex_]

It's common. Each time I leave somewhere I simply clear any personal stuff from a work email folders and empty the trash can.

delete the lot - if you are in a regulated industry they have email archiving and so doing this doesn’t actually delete anything.

alex

 

[Pickman's model]

delete the lot - if you are in a regulated industry they have email archiving and so doing this doesn’t actually delete anything.

alex

I deleted five years of emails before I left a job and sadly the organisation is still going

 

[equationgirl]

AnnO'Neemus you shouldn't have access to any IT system once you have left the organisation and it is incredibly common if not standard practice for others to have access for information purposes once you have left.

I once spent a tedious few days going through a colleague's email account for information to update records as she hadn't done it for months. That was not fun.

 

[Teaboy]

Like others have said you have no right to privacy on work email. They have provided you with that email address for the purposes of your job, you should assume that every email you send and receive on that account will be seen by others. In this day and age of smart phones I'm surprised that anyone would use a work email for anything but work.

A couple of years back a colleague left our company. My boss asked me to monitor her old email account for work stuff, as I think they didn't want to announce she had left to before they had a replacement. Anyway, she had clearly been using the email for personal stuff as for weeks afterwards she was still receiving personal emails to that account. It was a bit awkward for me as I had to read the first line or so to confirm whether it was business and personal, sometimes it was both.

In the end it worked out OK as I was able to forward to her all her personal emails which she may not have got otherwise and we were / are friends anyway. As I say though just awkward.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

In this day and age of smart phones I'm surprised that anyone would use a work email for anything but work.

Yeah, it must be much less common these days.

 

[weltweit]

I once had a boss who used to be copied all my outgoing emails in real time. I only do work on work email so it wasn't a problem. I just wish one of my colleagues had told me in advance.

Anyhow, someone who has left, yes an auto responder saying xyz no longer works here, please contact abc instead and I don't see anything wrong with incoming emails being redirected and others having access to the email trail they left. It is a work email account after all.

 

[A380]

It’s their train set.

Someone advised me years ago to treat work e-Mail like post cards that would go across your boss’s desk.

 

[keybored]

It’s their train set.

Someone advised me years ago to treat work e-Mail like post cards that would go across your boss’s desk.

This. But substitute "photocopier" for "desk".