Michelle Wong's department management during organizational layoffs

¶ … Michelle violates the company's policy and her suspicions turn out to be unfounded, then Jerry can sue the company for violation of privacy rights as provided by Electronic Communication privacy Act and by various amendments under U.S. constitution. The ECPA clearly indicates that employers cannot intercept personal communication while they are allowed to view communication that happens occurs ordinarily in the course of daily work (Business law, p. 528). Secondly the company policy also clearly indicates that employees cannot expect privacy when using company email account but their privacy will be protected when using web-based email services. In this case, Michelle would be intercepting communication that occurred through a personal account and if she turns out to be wrong, she can come under fire. However there may be an exception to her situation based on reasonable suspicion. She can provide evidence of Jerry unstable condition and violent behavior which could have put some employees in danger and had already been a source of stress in the workplace.

Workplace violence is a potentially explosive situation which can put many lives in danger and also result in major problems for the employer who is responsible for hiring suitable candidates after careful background check. Failure to check the background can lead to violence in the workplace which can cause fatal accidents. Similarly the inability to pay attention to unstable behavior or signs of distress exhibited by an employee could also bring the employer under fire. For this reason Michelle has adopted the right approach and could use this to justify her actions. But Jerry could still have the law on his side based on violation of privacy rights provided under ECPA and the Constitutional amendments.

ANSWER 2:

Michelle cannot and must not refer to what she found in Jerry's personal email but she can take the following steps to confront Jerry and possible reach a suitable resolution.

a. Michelle must refer to recent examples of unstable behavior demonstrated by Jerry to first explain why she is concerned about his behavior.

b. Without mentioning any names, Michelle must explain that Jerry's behavior is causing stress in the workplace and hurting employees morale

c. She must carefully listen to the reasons that Jerry may provide and also the way he reacts to the accusations. If he becomes overly defensive, this needs to be noted because it can later be brought to attention if Michelle resorts to email interception.

d. All these steps must be taken for two important reasons: first they would give Jerry an indication that his behavior is not going unnoticed and he may therefore become more careful about his behavior in the future. Secondly it may also bring him to his senses in case; he is really planning revenge against someone. Thirdly, it may allow Michelle a chance to see if Jerry needs to see a psychiatrist and she may thus refer the case to the concerned people for further evaluation of Jerry's mental state.

ANSWER 3:

There have been scenarios at our workplace in the past that had an ethical angle but since we were not as familiar with ethical components as we are now, we never really paid attention to that angle. For example I particularly remember this one case when a colleague was found in possession of marijuana and everyone just went berserk. It was later found that she had a medical reason for using marijuana and her culture saw this as a therapeutic substance and not as an illegal drug. We did react the way we would normally do in any other case of illegal drug possession but now that I think of how cultural beliefs play a role in our lives, I wonder if we would have behaved differently if we had known what we know now. I understand that culture doesn't allow anyone to use anything that is considered illegal, but had to been more sensitive to cultural beliefs and differences, we could have been more understanding and more sensitive to her feelings which were undeniably hurt when some of her closest friends at work refused to listen to her. Everyone thought she had done something majorly wrong by possessing this drug but little did they know that some cultures actually consider marijuana a safe medicine and do not see it as an illegal substance. Secondly if we knew more about ethics and cultural differences, we could have approached the management and advised them on making these important issues a part of the company policy so everyone would react more sensitively in such potentially explosive situations. Also the colleague in question could have been warned that despite cultural beliefs, some substances are not allowed in the workplace so she could do something about it instead of firing her immediately which must have caused her a lot of pain and inconvenience too.