A recent survey reveals that many employees are OK with sending offensive e-mails while they’re at work. That conduct can easily lead to lawsuits against their employers.

In a poll by Harris Interactive, 50% of the employees surveyed admitted that they’d forwarded explicit e-mails while at work. That’s a scary statistic for HR, since jokes like that can find their way into court rooms in the form of harassment lawsuits.

What you can do

Here are some steps you can take to limit the risk at your company:

• Include examples of improper e-mail use when you give harassment training. Sounds simple but many companies neglect to mention this in their training and policies.
• Remind supervisors that deleting an e-mail doesn’t mean it’s gone. Besides being backed up on the company’s server, it’s likely that an offended party will print out a copy, anyway.
• If your company monitors e-mail use, don’t forget about internal mail. Many companies use technology to keep an eye on outgoing messages (to prevent the leaking of trade secrets and the like), but don’t do the same for messages employees send to each other.

Like with all methods of harassment, one key to keeping out of court is to promptly deal with complaints as you get them. Also, regularly reminding employees, especially managers, about company policy can go a long way.

Tags: dirty e-mails, sex jokes, workplace harassment