A British expat has revealed he was almost fired after his boss read messages from a fellow worker about another colleague on the company’s communication platform.
Owen Willis, who is from the UK and spent time living in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast explained he was 17-years-old at the time and did not understand the ‘rules of corporate’.
‘This is your reminder that messengers sent on corporate platforms can and will be read by your employer,’ the marketing expert said in a video posted to social media.
He explained a colleague who he would always ‘have a laugh and a joke’ with would use the company’s Skype Business account to message each other.
‘We would just chat s**t on there all day. Like work stuff and then non-work stuff,’ Mr Willis said.
‘We’d talk about everyone, like if someone annoyed me I’d be like “guess what this person’s done” and put it in my Skype for business.
However, Willis said he had no idea that the chat history could be read by HR, his manager and the head of his team.
‘Obviously, we swore a lot in the messages, so I’m guessing that somehow got flagged,’ Willis said.
‘Or maybe we said something that was inappropriate that, I don’t know, got flagged.’
His work friend would always message him about a female colleague and her dress sense.
‘We had this colleague, right, and she would never dress appropriately for the office.
The company Willis worked for was located in a corporate building, and its employees were expected to dress ‘smart’ and appropriately for the office space.
Willis explained the female colleague would often wear a t-shirt and ‘Thailand elephant trousers’ and would get away with it – something his work friend was not happy with.
‘I never said anything bad about her, but my colleague, who I would message all the time, used to talk about it every day,’ Willis said.
‘They caught my colleague, who I was messaging, they got sacked and never came back to work.’
Owen Willis explained how he was almost fired from his first job after his boss read messages between him and a fellow colleague
While Willis did not send a message about the female colleague, he still had to go through a disciplinary meeting as he was involved by reading the messages and replying to them with a laughing face emoji.
‘Just because I was involved in that and I read the messages and probably just replied with laughing faces, I still then had to go through the disciplinary at work.
‘There was no disciplinary action on my behalf, cause they took the fact that I was 17 and an apprentice at the time, which I’m very thankful for.’
He advised workers to use WhatsApp or iMessage if they wanted to criticise a coworker, rather than using any work-related communication platforms.
Aussies shared similar stories to that of Willis, with many claiming they were busted using their company’s communication channel to talk about coworkers.
‘Our whole admin team (me included) got fired for having group chats on Skype for business,’ one person said.
‘Someone in my sisters office was fired after going through there work email and finding that he was having an affair with another woman in the office,’ a second added.
A third joked: ‘If my employer reads my Microsoft Teams messages I will genuinely be sacked.’
A fourth person added: ‘I love working in tech, this was one of the requests I used to look forward to the most, as we got to find out all the juicy drama about our clients/customers.’
Others advised workers who wanted to vent about office life or fellow colleagues should save it ‘for the pub’, in person or on the phone so that there was no written record of the conversation.
Willis explained he and his colleague sent messages using the company’s Skype Business account (stock image). Legally, employers are allowed to access private work messages
In Australia, the Workplace Surveillance Act (2005) stipulates employers are legally allowed to read an employee’s private work messages.
The legislation requires an employer give at least 14 days of notice before the surveillance starts.
The notice must outline details about the type of monitoring – whether CCTV, or work messages -, how it will be carried out, the start date and whether it would be for a period of time or ongoing.
Ultimately, employers are legally allowed to monitor an employee’s private work messages.
A company’s IT policy should provide more information on how an employee’s communications are monitored.