From BZ/dpa
If you don’t want to miss an important e-mail while on vacation, automatic forwarding to colleagues is an option. When the employer can request it.
Finally free, but the flood of e-mails at work usually doesn’t take a break during your absence.
Can the employer therefore demand that automatic forwarding be set up; So colleagues or superiors can receive and read all incoming e-mails?
“Basically yes,” says Peter Meyer, a specialist lawyer for labor law in Berlin. However, there are different scenarios.
“If the employee has received instructions that no private e-mails are allowed to run on the business e-mail account anyway, then it is not a problem,” says Meyer. According to the specialist lawyer, the same applies if the employment contract or a company agreement stipulates that e-mails can be forwarded during the employee’s absence.
If you then fail to set up the forwarding despite being asked to do so, you risk a warning.
If there is no corresponding regulation and if the private use of the professional e-mail account is not expressly excluded, the automatic forwarding of e-mails is controversial in terms of data protection law.
Here it depends on whether the employer has a legitimate interest in the forwarding – for example because incoming e-mails are necessary to process projects. “The prevailing opinion says that the employer can then also request the transfer,” says Meyer. The fact that one or the other private e-mail may also be received is a risk for the employee.
Do not delete emails unread
However, to be on the safe side, Meyer recommends employers to record the possible forwarding of e-mails in a works agreement or in the employment contract.
In practice, however, it is often common to post an out-of-office message. In this, employees point out that incoming e-mails will not be forwarded and instead give colleagues as an alternative contact.
In any case, however, the following applies: After the holiday, employees may not simply delete e-mails received during their absence without seeing them. Even if it takes time: “After the holiday I have to check what happened in my absence,” says Meyer.