Government Issues and Politics
Insurance and Employee Benefits
Business and Economic Info
Human Resources and Safety
Education Policies and Practicies
Training and Consulting Services
Welcome to CBIA's Training and Consulting site!
Small Business Human Resources Workforce Development Your Questoins Answered Success Stories

July/August 2004 — Vol. 82, No. 6

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Have a personnel-related or business tax question? Members can get free information from CBIA’s experts. The phone number is 860-244-1900.

 

Q: Some our of employees have been accessing the Internet for personal use. We want to develop a written policy about this. What should it include?

A: An effective electronic communications policy should cover the following:

  1. a statement that all electronic and telephonic communications systems are company property and should be used for business purposes;
  2. restrictions on personal use of the systems;
  3. employee access to and retrieval of stored information;
  4. prohibitions concerning employee access to or use of other employees’ systems or data;
  5. a nonexhaustive list of improper or inappropriate use of electronic systems, such as sending defamatory, harassing or threatening messages; accessing pornographic or discriminatory Internet sites; displaying offensive screen savers; and any other behavior that might put the employee or company at risk of legal proceedings;
  6. the company’s policy on monitoring use of electronic systems and data stored on them;
  7. the company’s policy on downloading software, files or other information from the Internet or other noncompany sources, including copyright concerns;
  8. any procedures designed to protect the company from computer viruses;
  9. any technical procedures employees are required to follow when using electronic systems, such as scheduling large print jobs or rules for prioritizing use when systems are shared; and
  10. a statement that violating the policy can lead to discipline, up to and including discharge.

Include the policy in your employee handbook. You might also meet with employees to go over the policy, then have them sign a form acknowledging that they have received and read it.

Note that under Connecticut law, companies must post written notice if they intend to monitor employees’ use of electronic communications systems through means other than direct observation.

Q: A debt collector has been calling one of our employees at work several times a week. Must we pass along such calls to employees? Can we tell the caller not to contact our employee at work?

A: State law requires employers to notify employees of incoming emergency calls involving a serious injury, illness or the death of an immediate family member. Employers are not obligated to interrupt employees at work with other types of calls. You may tell a collector that you will not pass along collection calls to your employee, but a persistent collector might continue to call anyway.

Your employee, however, does have the ability to prevent such calls. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, among other things, prohibits a debt collector from contacting a debtor at work once notified by the debtor that his or her employer disapproves of such contacts. If your employee advises a collector in writing to stop contacting him or her at work because you object, the collector may no longer place such calls, other than to say there will be no further contact or to notify the debtor that the creditor intends to take some specific action, such as filing suit. Your employee should understand that this strategy does not erase any legitimate debt that is owed, and it may result in further legal action to recover on the debt. But it should eliminate any further disruptive calls at the workplace.

Also, be aware that even though employers are not obligated to pass along collection calls to their employees, they are obligated to implement a properly served wage execution arising out of an employee’s failure to pay attention to a creditor. And it is illegal to discipline an employee because of any wage executions unless the employer is served with more than seven wage executions on that employee in a calendar year.

Q: Can a financing company, customer or other interested party obtain a status letter from the Department of Revenue Services regarding my business?

A: Not unless your company has requested it. Before the DRS can issue a status letter about a business taxpayer, an authorized representative of the company must have initiated it. A third party, such as an accountant or lawyer, may obtain a status letter on a company’s behalf with a properly completed power of attorney form (LGL-101). A status letter request must be on the taxpayer’s letterhead and contain specific company information for the DRS to issue the letter. Lending institutions often require a status letter from a business before approving a loan application, but they may not obtain one from the DRS without the consent of the applicant. For more information on status letter requirements, consult DRS Informational Publication 2004 (9) on the DRS Web site or contact a DRS representative at 1-800-382-9463.

 

[back to top]