Online safety watchdog Netsafe has started a website aimed at helping businesses develop or improve policies for staff use of technology in the workplace.
The new site, The Whatsit, aims to make it easy and cheap for managers to draw up policies relating to staff use of IT equipment and
the internet.
Netsafe executive director Martin Cocker said small and medium-sized businesses typically didn't have the time or money to develop technology use policies and "it is not until something goes wrong that businesses look to put something formal in place".
"Often by then, it's too little, too late."
Cocker said the non-profit organisation hoped providing information on appropriate and inappropriate use of company IT equipment would reduce the potential for misunderstanding in the workplace - and reduce the risk businesses faced.
Instances of companies being caught out by inappropriate use of technology have grown with increased reliance on IT over the past few years.
The most recent high-profile case involved a Blenheim-based employee of Safe Air, an Air New Zealand subsidiary, who was sacked in February after sending hundreds of non-work-related emails to family and friends, including 26 which were "of concern" to Safe Air management because they contained explicit depictions of lewdness, nudity and/or sex acts.
The man won his job back after taking a case to the Employment Relations Authority where he successfully argued there was a culture within the workplace where sending such emails "was not likely to offend and was banter between colleagues".
The ERA found that while the man was among a group of staff that had contributed to "widespread inappropriate use of emails" it was likely his actions had resulted from his being "not clear about the standards expected".
