Policy Purpose
Our company email usage policy helps employees use their company email addresses appropriately. Email is essential to our everyday jobs. We want to ensure that our employees understand the limitations of using their company email accounts.
Our goal is to protect our confidential data from breaches and safeguard our reputation and technological property.
Scope
This policy applies to all employees, vendors and partners who are assigned (or given access to) a company email account. This email may be assigned to an individual (e.g. employeename@company-name.com) or department (e.g. hr@company-name.com.)
Policy elements
Company emails are powerful tools that help employees in their jobs. Employees should use their company email primarily for work-related purposes. However, we want to provide employees with some freedom to use their emails for personal reasons.
We will define what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate use.
Inappropriate use of company email
Our employees represent our company whenever they use their company email address. They must not:
- Sign up for illegal, unreliable, disreputable or suspect websites and services.
- Send unauthorized marketing content or solicitation emails.
- Register for a competitor’s services unless authorized.
- Send insulting or discriminatory messages and content.
- Intentionally spam other people’s emails, including their coworkers.
Our company has the right to monitor and archive corporate emails.
Appropriate use of company email
Employees are allowed to use their company email for work-related purposes without limitations. For example, employees can use their email to:
- Communicate with current or prospective customers and partners.
- Log in to purchased software they have legitimate access to.
- Give their email address to people they meet at conferences, career fairs or other corporate events for business purposes.
- Sign up for newsletters, platforms and other online services that will help them with their jobs or professional growth.
Personal use
Employees are allowed to use their company email for some personal reasons. For example, employees can use their company email to:
- Register for classes or meetups.
- Send emails to friends and family as long as they don’t spam or disclose confidential information.
- Download ebooks, guides and other content for their personal use as long as it is safe and appropriate.
Employees must adhere to this policy at all times, in addition to our confidentiality and data protection guidelines.
Email security
Email is often the medium of hacker attacks, confidentiality breaches, viruses and other malware. These issues can compromise our reputation, legality and security of our equipment.
Employees must:
- Select strong passwords with at least eight characters (capital and lower-case letters, symbols and numbers) without using personal information (e.g. birthdays.)
- Remember passwords instead of writing them down and keep them secret.
- Change their email password every two months.
Also, employees should always be vigilant to catch emails that carry malware or phishing attempts. We instruct employees to:
- Avoid opening attachments and clicking on links when content is not adequately explained (e.g. “Watch this video, it’s amazing.”)
- Be suspicious of clickbait titles.
- Check email and names of unknown senders to ensure they are legitimate.
- Look for inconsistencies or style red flags (e.g. grammar mistakes, capital letters, excessive number of exclamation marks.)
If an employee isn’t sure that an email they received is safe, they can ask our [Security Specialists.]
We remind our employees to keep their anti-malware programs updated.
Email Signature
We encourage employees to create an email signature that exudes professionalism and represents our company well. Salespeople and executives, who represent our company to customers and stakeholders, should pay special attention to how they close emails. Here’s a template of an acceptble email signature:
[Employee Name]
[Employee Title], [Company Name with link]
[Phone number] | [Company Address]
Employees may also include professional images, company logos and work-related videos and links in email signatures. If they are unsure how to do so, they can ask for help from our Office Manager or their supervisor.
Disciplinary action
Employees who don’t adhere to the present policy will face disciplinary action up to and including termination. Example reasons for termination are:
- Using a corporate email address to send confidential data without authorization.
- Sending offensive or inappropriate emails to our customers, colleagues or partners.
- Using a corporate email for an illegal activity.
Disclaimer: This policy template is meant to provide general guidelines and should be used as a reference. It may not take into account all relevant local, state or federal laws and is not a legal document. AlpineWeb Design will assume no legal liability that may arise from the use of this policy.
