Business Ethics Conduct Guide
Best practice guidelines
for using e-mail
www.thalesgroup.com
Contents
PREFACE ...................................................... 3
DID YOU KNOW? ........................................... 4
Make better use of time ......................................... 4
Manage the mass of information ............................. 5
Avoid a sense of urgency ........................................ 6
Avoid e-mail dependency ......................................... 6
Improve the quality of your communication ................. 7
Avoid conflicts ...................................................... 8
Protect against malicious e-mails ............................. 8
TOOLBOX .................................................... 10
Guidelines for the proper use of NuCo ..................... 10
Guide to basic functions ........................................ 10
Guide to advanced functions .................................. 10
Thales University eLearning portal .......................... 10
FURTHER INFORMATION ............................. 11
France ............................................................... 11
Germany............................................................. 12
United Kingdom .................................................. 12
United States ..................................................... 13
Australia ............................................................. 13
Other regulations ................................................. 13
Thales IT Charter and specific instructions ............... 14
TALK TO US................................................. 15
THALES – Business Ethics Conduct Guide – Best practice guidelines for using e-mail
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PREFACE
33
Preface
‘‘ These guidelines are an invitation to ‘stand back’…
… and think about some of our daily routines – and
to see if there are things we could change or
improve.
E-mail has come to play an important role in the way
we interact with others. It can sometimes be invasive,
and we don’t always use it as responsibly as we
could!
Some of the ideas in these guidelines may sound
obvious, but they are here simply to remind us all to
think twice about how we interact with other people.’’
Dominique Lamoureux,
Vice-President,
Ethics and Corporate Responsibility
This guide has been developed in close collaboration with the
following Corporate Departments: Communications, Human
Resources, Security, Internal Audit, Information Systems.
CHORUS REFERENCE - 87205444-GOV-GRP-EN-001- Creation December 2012
DID YOU KNOW?
4
Inappropriate use of e-mail can cause annoyance
or inconvenience, but this can be avoided. By raising
a few issues, this guide aims to improve your
understanding of e-mail and help you make better
use of it in your daily work.
Make better use of time
E-mail is a quick way to communicate. You can send
a message to one person or as many people you
like, whenever necessary, without needing to go
anywhere or wait until they are free. However, the alltoo-familiar build-up of messages in people’s inboxes
can cancel out the time savings.
Use the e-mail tool’s built-in functions to sort and
archive your messages every day and housekeep
your mailbox so you can find things easily.
Be specific in your subject lines, because this will
help your addressees to manage their mailboxes
as well.
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Manage the mass of information
To avoid this, ask yourself about the suitability of
the channel of communication used.
E-mail is not always the best way to communicate.
A telephone call or face-to-face meeting may be
more appropriate.
Similarly, avoid sending too much information at
the same time, or choose recipients on a needto-know basis, rather than bulk mailing.
Also remember that using email does have an
environmental cost and the more email we send, the
higher the cost! In a company with 100 employees,
for example, a year’ worth of email traffic has about
the same carbon footprint as flying from Paris to
New York and back 13 times! This is due to the
electricity needed to power the servers that send
and store the messages.
Here are three ways we can reduce the environmental
impact of our email usages:
limit the number of recipients: for example, do
not use Reply All unless strictly necessary.
reduce the size of each email: include thumbnails
instead of full-size pictures, and send a link (URL)
instead of attaching a document if possible.
use text instead of HTML.
CHORUS REFERENCE - 87205444-GOV-GRP-EN-001- Creation December 2012
DID YOU KNOW?
With the widespread use of e-mail, the volume of
information exchanged every day has also increased.
This can lead to information overload and
incomprehension.
6
DID YOU KNOW?
Avoid a sense of urgency
E-mail boosts productivity, but inappropriate use can
cause stress for the people on the receiving end. An
e-mail can give the impression that your request is
urgent and must be dealt with immediately. Plus, if
you e-mail people during evenings or weekends, it
can encourage or oblige them to respond outside
their normal working hours. Such practices have
been condemned in courts of law.
Tips for avoiding a sense of urgency:
choose the best time to send your message
and / or specify when you need a response.
if a message is urgent, state this clearly in the
subject line or body of the message, or use the
important / priority / urgent indicator in your
e-mail tool.
However, urgent messages should be the
exception, not the rule!
limit when and where you access your mailbox
(see below).
Avoid e-mail dependency
E-mail is so useful – and compatible with company
3G laptops, smartphones, pushmail devices, etc. –
that it can be used almost exclusively, to the
detriment of other tools, creating a degree of
dependence and a willingness (or even perceived
need) to be reachable at all times.
As outlined above, matters are even worse when
people are receiving work e-mails outside normal
work hours. For this reason, it is important to set
boundaries on when you are available or can be
reached, particularly during meetings and periods
of annual leave.
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To reduce your dependence, you can also limit
pushmail (which automatically ‘pushes’ messages
from the mail server to your mobile device), or
get your smartphone to sync messages at regular
intervals instead of immediately.
Improve the quality of your
communication
E-mail makes it easier to contact people and allows more
frequent communication, but quality of content tends to
suffer. If we’re not careful, our exchanges can become
depersonalised and less engaging and meaningful.
Obviously you can’t say everything in an e-mail, but
there’s no need to damage a relationship!
Simply identifying the person you are e-mailing at the
start of the message, identifying yourself by using a
signature at the end for example, and personalising
the content of your message will help improve the
quality of your communications.
Always ask yourself whether e-mail is the most
appropriate form of communication in that
particular situation.
Excessive use of e-mail for general communications can
make the people on the receiving end lose interest and
motivation.
Taking the time to meet your teams, encouraging
them face to face, responding to their e-mails
and giving them more autonomy are just some of
the ways to re-motivate them.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Try to limit how accessible you are:
when away on leave, activate the out-of-office
message function, which automatically replies
to anyone who e-mails you, telling them you are
unavailable and who to contact if their request
is urgent.
don’t check your messages during meetings!
8
DID YOU KNOW?
Avoid conflicts
E-mails can be misinterpreted, resulting in misunderstandings and conflicts. They can fire up emotions
and lead to abusive behaviour. People may feel at
liberty to do / say more from behind their screens
than they would if they were face to face with the
person at the other end.
Be careful about what you put in your e-mails and
how you put it. Don’t ‘‘reply all’’ when you only
need to reply to the person concerned – it limits
the number of people receiving any personal or
contentious information.
The best way to defuse a conflict is talking face
to face.
Protect against malicious e-mails
Because e-mail can be sent quickly and easily to any
number of people at the same time, it lends itself to
abuse. Phishing (1), spam and e-mails containing viruses
are just three of the dangers awaiting unsuspecting
users. It is therefore important to recognise the
risks and deal with them effectively:
Spam: unsolicited messages, usually advertising,
sent indiscriminately and often repeatedly to huge
numbers of people whose e-mail addresses have
been harvested without their consent.
The best advice is to never respond to such
messages, but simply delete them.
(1) Technique used by fraudsters to extract personal data and steal people’s
identities.
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Remember, legitimate financial partners never
send this type of e-mail.
So treat any such messages with caution and
suspicion, particularly if they ask for confidential
details.
Also, never click on a link in an e-mail which looks
suspicious.
Viruses: code carried by certain e-mails, which
installs itself on your computer as soon as you open
a contaminated file attachment or connect to a
contaminated website, then executes its payload
to destroy certain file types on your hard drive
or spy on your computer to harvest and export
confidential information.
Beware of any e-mail that arrives from an unknown
source, or that looks strange or contains anything
strange even if it appears to come from a familiar
address. The virus protection installed on your
Thales computer is vital, but it may not be effective
against unknown malware (2).
These guidelines are not intended to restrict the
way that e-mail is used. They are recommendations
based on broad experience that have proven useful
in the past and should help us to make the
most of e-mail as a quick and efficient way to
communicate.
(2) Malicious software, designed to harm computers and networks, without the
knowledge or consent of the infected user.
CHORUS REFERENCE - 87205444-GOV-GRP-EN-001- Creation December 2012
DID YOU KNOW?
Phishing: method based on e-mails purporting to
be from banks, credit card companies and other
reputable financial organisations, designed to trick
unsuspecting users into disclosing confidential
information.
10
TOOLBOX
More practical recommendations for Thales
employees on the use of e-mail are available
on the Group IT Department intranet site.
Guidelines for the proper use of NuCo
Recommendations to improve communications
using the NuCo system, to be read in conjunction
with this guide.
http://intranet.corp.thales/isp/pub/
Reglesdebonusage_en.cfm?intralang=en
Guide to basic functions
A quick-start guide to the basics of these various
tools, designed to get you up and running.
http://intranet.corp.thales/isp/pub/
nuco_user_guide_basic_en.cfm?intralang=en
Guide to advanced functions
More comprehensive information about organising
meetings, managing shared calendars and other
more advanced functions.
http://intranet.corp.thales/isp/pub/
nuco_user_guide_advanced_en.cfm?intralang=en
Thales University eLearning portal
Email best practices are outlined in the « Communicating
powerfully by email » module.
http://thales.lms.crossknowledge.com/candidat/
product_sheet.php?report_id=1368139
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Rules already exist for the use of e-mail but they
vary from country to country and operate at several
different levels.
At national level, the use of e-mail is subject to a
legal framework, which varies from one country to
another; list of applicable regulations in selected
countries at time of publication.
Electronic messages can be recognized by French
courts as a legitimate form of evidence, if the
part which calls upon them had access there in a
regular way.
Personal e-mails sent from a work mailbox are
tolerated to a certain extent, provided they do not
affect people’s work, do not reflect negatively on
the company’s reputation and do not disrupt the
operation of its information systems.
If you want your correspondence to be considered
private, you must clearly state in the subject line
that such e-mails are personal or private in nature.
In your absence, the company has no right to
access personal e-mail folders or messages, provided
they are marked as such. In any event, only the
IT department would be able to access them.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
France
12
At Thales, employees working in the defence sector
are required to comply with national security laws
and regulations. Any breaches may be subject to
prosecution.
These rules stipulate, among other things, that no
classified defence information may be transmitted
by e-mail. For sensitive but unclassified information
or specific information of a strictly national nature,
refer to the instructions available on the Legifrance
website (see link below) or contact the person
responsible for security at your site.
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cid
Texte=JORFTEXT000024892134&fastPos=1&fast
ReqId=275001272&categorieLien=cid&oldAction=
rechTexte
FURTHER INFORMATION
Germany
Companies that allow their employees to use their
work mailboxes for private purposes cannot monitor
the content of any such messages unless an
employee is specifically suspected of a serious criminal
offence. Rules on the appropriate use of the company
e-mail system must be approved by the works
council in an agreement.
United Kingdom
Employees are entitled to a private family life. In this
respect, they may engage in a reasonable amount of
private correspondence at work, particularly by
e-mail. However, the law protects employers and
allows them to monitor employee e-mails. Misuse of
e-mail can result in dismissal.
THALES – Business Ethics Conduct Guide – Best practice guidelines for using e-mail
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United States
Private e-mails are not considered confidential
when they are sent from a work mailbox. Legal
rulings have established that employees do not
have a reasonable expectation of privacy at their
place of work. However, individual employers may
decide otherwise, in which case they must specify
their policy in writing.
Australia
As in the United States, Australian law does not
prevent a company from monitoring employee e-mails,
if the company owns the server. The workplace is
considered a public place, but companies must inform
employees about the specific types of monitoring in
place.
In the Group’s other countries of operation, local
regulations are likely to be different from those
described above, particularly in the area of national
defence. It is important to be aware of them and
refer to them whenever necessary.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
Other regulations
14
At Group level, the Thales IT Charter provides a
framework and best practice recommendations for
the use of information and communication systems
across the organisation, including the use of e-mail.
In France, infringement of this charter can lead to
sanctions.
The Charter is available on intranet sites ‘‘ Information
Systems ’’ and ‘‘ Chorus 2.0 ’’.
The Charter is designed to be used in conjunction
with specific instructions relating to:
Information sensitivity
Thales has determined degrees of sensitivity for
confidential information, with corresponding procedures to be followed whenever such information
is sent by e-mail. These procedures are available
on Chorus 2.0.
http://chorus2-mod.corp.thales/modulo/webservice?
database=chorus2p&servicename=fileget&number=
GRP/ORGA/01053
FURTHER INFORMATION
Security
Specific security tools and resources to protect
the information system are available to users.
They are available on the intranet and must be
used.
http://intranet.corp.thales/isp/pub/referential_
en.cfm?&page_1360=1&y=0&intralang=en
Export control for technical data
http://intranet.corp.thales/export-control/pub/
index_en.cfm?&intralang=en
THALES – Business Ethics Conduct Guide – Best practice guidelines for using e-mail
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Talk to us...
For more information, details or advice,
please contact:
Ethics and Corporate Responsibility
Department:
[email protected]
+ 33 (0)1 57 77 82 07
TALK TO US
☎
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Ethics and Corporate
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45 rue de Villiers
92526 Neuilly-sur-Seine Cedex
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