Heads up, your messages to your work besties might not be as private as you might think.
An employment lawyer has warned that you should think twice before getting yourself involved in the next workplace goss sesh online.
If your workplace uses platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack and Google’s G-Chat, your employer might actually be able to pull up your conversations - if need be.
This was the case for Immigration NZ, who made headlines this week by standing down eight staff members after discovering a series of “inappropriate and unprofessional” Teams chats.
The "serious and concerning" messages were reportedly discovered while investigating an unrelated complaint about decisions made by an employee.
Employment lawyer Barbara Buckett told RNZ: "People have these chats and it sort of seems to be a secure medium from an employee point of view, and they get carried away.”
“They get into these group chats and they seem to treat it like, sort of like the old water cooler and so they think it's all between themselves.”
Spoiler alert: It’s NOT.
Barbara made it clear that chats on work digital platforms are “etched in stone.” So yeah, they can come back to haunt you…
But don’t go into full panic mode just yet. If this were the case, Barbara says that your employer has an obligation to let you know about their access to your communications.
According to Microsoft’s Tech Community member Lui Lacobellis: “This capability is typically only used when an employer has a reason to use it and more often than not these reasons tend to be extraordinary (i.e. Investigations of unethical behaviour, whistleblower complaints, allegations or harassment or other),” he explains.
He adds: “Controls and processes are put in place to govern this capability and ensure it's not misused.”
So, while it’s not as simple as your boss just pulling up your group chats, you might still wanna keep the workplace goss seshes offline… or as a responsible adult would say… not at all!
