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Yesterday, a private channel existed where your employee Jim may have mentioned to his friend and coworker that he had a date with his male partner. Today, tha

Yesterday, a private channel existed where your employee Jim may have mentioned to his friend and coworker that he had a date with his male partner. Today, that data became available to you. You were planning to fire Jim, but now there's a risk that it would look discriminatory. Do you risk a wrongful termination lawsuit and dragging your company's name through the mud? You could check his slack messages to assess that risk, but if you do find something then you're in an even worse situation. This seems like the same minefield as asking an employee to login to his facebook. The main difference is that this time, slack did it to you -- you were not given a chance to opt-out.

jimktrains2 9y ago
Wait a month and then do it while making sure you have a clear case. I believe similar advice is given if there is an OSHA check -- since you can't know why you were checked, it's best to wait before firing anyone for non-blatant/egregious, even if it's with cause and evidence. > This seems like the same minefield as asking an employee to login to his facebook. How is this like facebook? It's a corporate medium, just like email would be, or like a company-run XMPP or IRC server.
- thefifthsetpin 9y ago
  It's like facebook in that the employees had a guarantee of privacy (insofar as most private communication is private; obviously the recipient can expose the message, or someone can coerce you to login to your account). Some people are waving this away with, "oh, probably the employee signed some contract saying that it wasn't private" but even if that's often true it's of course sometimes not true. Certainly I've never signed a contract with that kind of clause, but I've generally worked for small companies. I suppose there's nothing preventing a company from using facebook as a corporate communication medium. That'd of course not a good idea since they don't have access to some of what goes on at facebook. The same thing was true for slack. Some companies used slack without considering that the data wasn't really under their control, which was perhaps not a good idea. This change is akin to facebook recognizing that blunder, and "fixing" it by making DMs between employees available to their employer.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    > It's like facebook in that the employees had a guarantee of privacy (insofar as most private communication is private; Nope. You could be compelled to show your DMs on a work system. There is no such thing as privacy on a work system.
- thefifthsetpin 9y ago
  "Wait a month" if you do that, then slack just cost you thousands of dollars. How mad I'd be at slack would be proportional to how may thousands of dollars they just cost me.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    Such is the cost of constant surveillance? You need to weigh the pros and cons in any situation. If you don't think that you saw such a DM is relevant, then consult your lawyer and fire them. If you feel it best to wait, you wait. Also, how is this different from Email?

jimktrains2 9y ago

Wait a month and then do it while making sure you have a clear case. I believe similar advice is given if there is an OSHA check -- since you can't know why you were checked, it's best to wait before firing anyone for non-blatant/egregious, even if it's with cause and evidence. > This seems like the same minefield as asking an employee to login to his facebook. How is this like facebook? It's a corporate medium, just like email would be, or like a company-run XMPP or IRC server.

thefifthsetpin 9y ago
It's like facebook in that the employees had a guarantee of privacy (insofar as most private communication is private; obviously the recipient can expose the message, or someone can coerce you to login to your account). Some people are waving this away with, "oh, probably the employee signed some contract saying that it wasn't private" but even if that's often true it's of course sometimes not true. Certainly I've never signed a contract with that kind of clause, but I've generally worked for small companies. I suppose there's nothing preventing a company from using facebook as a corporate communication medium. That'd of course not a good idea since they don't have access to some of what goes on at facebook. The same thing was true for slack. Some companies used slack without considering that the data wasn't really under their control, which was perhaps not a good idea. This change is akin to facebook recognizing that blunder, and "fixing" it by making DMs between employees available to their employer.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  > It's like facebook in that the employees had a guarantee of privacy (insofar as most private communication is private; Nope. You could be compelled to show your DMs on a work system. There is no such thing as privacy on a work system.
thefifthsetpin 9y ago
"Wait a month" if you do that, then slack just cost you thousands of dollars. How mad I'd be at slack would be proportional to how may thousands of dollars they just cost me.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  Such is the cost of constant surveillance? You need to weigh the pros and cons in any situation. If you don't think that you saw such a DM is relevant, then consult your lawyer and fire them. If you feel it best to wait, you wait. Also, how is this different from Email?