Employees Discuss Evading Employer Management of BYOD Policies

Management employment lawyers write a great deal about managing your workplace electronic communications and data because the proliferation of electronic devices and remote working has created so many ways to lose vital company data.

I have linked to the blog of employee-side lawyer, Donna Ballman, who writes about ways that employees could circumvent employer efforts to manage data when they maintain “Bring Your Own Device”(BYOD) policies. This gives you an idea of how “the other side” may view employer efforts, and their possible responses.

Your Employer Wants To Erase Your Personal Cell Phone And Computer

The concept of BYOD is all the rage in management-side circles right now. BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device. Basically, the idea is that companies let employees do work for them on their own cell phones, laptops, tablets and other devices. Lots of dark-side, er, management-side lawyers are blogging about employer risks in having employees use their personal devices at work, and I don’t necessarily disagree with them. Some of my management-side colleagues even offer sensible advice on the issue, and even offer advice on how to reassure employees about their privacy concerns. I’m all for employers getting advice on how to get things right.

Then I saw this advice in a recent blog post:

Address what happens when the employee stops working for your company: As noted above, employers have a duty to safeguard sensitive company data. Therefore, when an employee terminates his or her relationship with the employer, the employer must ensure that all of its data is permanently erased from the employee’s personal devices. Yet, it is often impossible to separate relevant company data from personal employee information when “wiping” a device. Therefore, employers should require that their employees acknowledge and agree that all of the data on their devices will be erased when the employee stops working for the company.

Please continue reading at “Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home.”

About mavity2012

I am a Senior Partner operating out of the Atlanta office of Fisher & Phillips LLP, one of the Nation’s oldest and largest management employment and labor firms. My practice is national and keeps me on the road or in one of our 28 offices about 50 percent of the time. I created and co-chair the Firm's Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group. I have almost 29 years of experience as a labor lawyer, but rely even more heavily on the experience I gained in working in my family's various businesses, and through dealing with practical client issues. Employers tell me that they seldom meet an attorney who delivers on his promise to provide practical guidance and to be a business partner. As a result, some executives probably use different terms than “practical” to describe my fellow travelers in the profession. I don't enjoy the luxury of being impractical because I spend much of my time on shop floors and construction sites dealing with safety, union and related issues which are driven by real world processes and the need to protect and get the most out of one's most important business assets ... its employees. That's one of the reasons that I view safety compliance as a way to also manage problem employees, reduce litigation and develop the type of work environment that makes unions unnecessary. Starting out dealing with union-management challenges and a stint in the NLRB have better equipped me to see the interrelationship of legal and workplace factors. I am proud also of my experience at Fisher & Phillips, where providing “practical advice” is second only to legal excellence among the Firm’s values. Our website lists me as having provided counsel for over 225 occasions of union activity, guided unionized companies, and as having managed approximately 450 OSHA fatality cases in construction and general industry, ranging from dust explosions to building collapses, in virtually every state. I have coordinated complex inspections involving multi-employer sites, corporate-wide compliance, and issues involving criminal referral. As a full labor lawyer, I oversee audits of corporate labor, HR, and safety compliance. I have responded to virtually every type of day-to-day workplace inquiry, and have handled cases before the EEOC, OFCCP, NLRB, and numerous other state and federal agencies. At F & P, all of us seek to spot issues and then rely upon attorneys in the Firm who concentrate on those areas. No tunnel vision. I teach or speak around 50 times per year to business associations, bar and professional groups, and to individual businesses. I serve on safety committees at three states’ AGC Chapters, teach at the AGC ASMTC

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