* Readers against universal e-mail
Last time, we heard from readers who were for the idea of providing e-mail to all workers. This time we hear from those who don’t believe that all workers should have this capability.
Here are some responses:
* “I don’t believe all workers should have e-mail on the workfloor. But YES, you can provide them with e-mail at home to provide them browser-based [e-mail] with company information. Put the burden of anti-virus/spam at the provider. As we all know, e-mail at the workplace/desk will consume a lot of time with too much ‘not-to-the-(business) point’ communication!”
* “There are far more practical and economical means of collaboration, including instant messaging, secure document repositories and electronic bulletin boards. In fact, I have found that employees collaborate far more efficiently when e-mail is replaced by these other means of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. Furthermore, I find that these other methods require far less effort to protect against all types of computer attacks.”
* “The feeling here is that if you want to e-mail your friends and family, then go home. E-mail at work is to be used as a tool to perform your task. If the user does not need outside e-mail access, they will not get it. This appears on the surface to be a bit harsh compared to other state agencies, but we have yet to get infected with an e-mail-borne virus.”
* “We maintain our own Exchange server with approximately 150 mailboxes. We debated this issue a couple of years ago and decided to change our strategy from a default that provided all employees with e-mail to one that did not. The decision was triggered by several factors: a) our population is predominantly nurses – we found that the vast majority never used their external e-mail accounts; b) we were experiencing a huge increase in the number of virus-infected e-mails being caught by our virus filter agent – it had become obvious to us that many people were ignoring our policies and guidelines regarding the steps needed to protect our network; c) we don’t monitor e-mail routinely, but several situations made us aware that people were not adhering to our policy regarding personal use of e-mail.”
Thank you to everyone who commented on the newsletter.
