Fired for Typing in All Caps? Where's Your E-mail Policy!

I have alerts set on “e-mail etiquette” so I can keep on top of what folks are discussing and what is important to them. This week a big story broke in New Zealand about a woman who was fired on the pretense that she yelled at customers and coworkers via e-mail by typing in all caps and bolding certain words in red.

You can see all the story mentions on Google (12,500 as of today). So with 12,500 hits, this seems to be a topic onliners are talking about.

Turns out this woman was perceived or known to be confrontational which added to her e-mail’s negative perception. But the kicker is since the company that fired her didn’t have an e-mail policy in place, a court ruled there were no rules in place to use as a basis for the firing and awarded her over $12,000.00.

So the moral of the story, grasshopper? If you run a business, you must have an e-mail policy in place that you go over with each employee, have them sign it after your review, give them a copy and put a copy in your files. If you do not let employees know what is expected of them and what is accepted practice when representing your business via e-mail, you cannot fire them after the fact if you don’t like what they do.

Here’s a Sample Business Email Policy you can start with to get yours in place if you don’t have one. So what are you waiting for!?

(I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on T.V. therefore this is not legal advice and you should run any policy you put in place past your own legal beagles to get their blessing.)