Misuse of Power at work means Bullying at work

Two-thirds of UK managers believe that lack of management skills is the major factor contributing to bullying at work.
According to OutLaw New misuse of power was listed as the most prolific type of bullying used within the workplace.

A survey by the Ban Bullying at Work campaign questioned 512 senior managers across the UK in conjunction with the Chartered Management Institute ahead of the fifth national Ban Bullying at Work day which takes place on 7th November.

The other main factors, given by managers themselves, which contribute to bullying at work included unrealistic targets (cited by 27%); authoritarian management styles (56%); personality (57%); and failure to address incidents (37%).

The survey also asked managers what they believed was the most prolific type of bullying used. Misuse of power was cited by 71% of managers while 63% cited overbearing supervision and 55% cited exclusion.

http://www.banbullyingatwork.com/main.asp?id=home

Source : OutLaw News

Does your virus checker detect police spyware

Most virus checkers won't. More info here .

FBI's Secret Spyware Tracks Down Teen Who Made Bomb Threats

London drivers exempt from privacy

If you did not already know - there are a ring of highly sophisticated cameras within London, which are used to operate the central london congestion charge system. These cameras are fitted with automatic plate recognition (APNR) technology.


Last week the Police in London were granted exemption from the Data Protection Act to track the city's motorists. The Home Office has granted The Metropolitan Police full, real time access to surveillance footage from London's congestion system cameras.

"The camera data shall only be processed for the purpose of processing for matters relating to safeguarding national security, it shall not be used for general policing purposes," said the document which sets out the reasons for granting the exemption"

I would like to see a definition of "National Security". Not really a big deal, just means more people will have access to our details. Car registration, facial images and driving habits : )

Your company may own your facebook profile

Employers could have grounds to demand ownership of employees' social networking profiles, such as those generated on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo, according to a recent case.

This is all due to a recent case where a journalist was forced to hand over his contact lists from facebook, after he left the company.


The argument is that if you create or use a network in work time it belongs to the employer.

"The basic law is that if you create copyright material, something you write or type into a computer, you take photographs, you do cartoons, you potentially create film, if that is created in the course of your employment then the assumption is that that belongs to your employer, so that doesn't have to be written down by your employer "

We all think this does not affect our work and if we are in touch with colleagues then this is our own business. This is not the case and you should all be very careful.

So what should you do?

1).You should keep personal and social lists separate, or even better use a totally separate site.
2).Do not use social networking sites in work time : ) yeh right...
3). If you are going to leave and continue to stay intouch with your colleagues or your boss - make sure you leave on good terms,
4). Try not to implicate your organisation in a negative manner - REMEMBER - it only take one person too google you, to see what your like as a person.
5). Your profile represents you...too much info on it and you loose privacy.

Read the whole ruling http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2007/1570.html

Unwanted Calls

We all get them.You answer the phone and you say "hello" but no one is there. But, when someone does respond it is either a sales person or a computer telling you that a representative of an organisation has been trying to contact you.

My recommendation is that you go to the TPS. "The Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) is the central opt out register whereby corporate subscribers (see definition below) can register their wish not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls to either all their organisation's telephone numbers, or to certain numbers. It is a legal requirement that companies do not make such calls to numbers registered on the CTPS"

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/

The best thing i found is that it allows you to opt out your mobile number and mailing address too.

Hope this helps