Forum: workplace.stackexchange.com
Tags: <software-industry><email><sri-lanka>
Title: Is it typical in small companies to BCC the CEO on all external mails?
Question: I work for a small company (less than 10 employees) in the Software Engineering field in Sri Lanka. We have a policy that all our outgoing Emails must be BCC'ed to ceo_bcc@example.com.  I feel like this is too much and it is frustrating. I think some employees are leaving company because of these type of strict policies.  Is it normal behavior of all companies? How do I discuss this thing with CEO, without his thinking I am overstepping my position?

Answers:
sents: text: The particular solution this company is implementing is unorthodox, but you usually can not expect that your company email account is a private medium.
text: When you are using a company mailserver, then all mails you send and receive will be stored on it in clear text.
text: That means if management feels that they need to read your work email, then it is usually possible for them to do that.
text: A more savvy mailserver administrator would be able to silently forward all emails to that ceo_bcc mailbox automatically without requiring any actions from the end-user.
text: Having the end-users do this manually instead of implementing an automatic solution is dangerous, though.
text: People will forget that from time to time.
text: If the intention behind this policy are benevolent, then it might result in the management not being aware of something they should be, leading to wrong decisions being made.
text: If the intention is malevolent, then non-BCCed mails could be used as a pretext to sanction someone.
text: So what do you discuss with the CEO?
text: Tell them to ask the IT department to set up an automatic forwarding rule so you no longer need to do this manually.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/9959/Philipp
score: 79
sents: text: I feel like this is too much and
text: it frustrating.
text: I think some employers are leaving company because of these type of strict policies.
text: Is it normal behavior of all companies?
text: How do I discuss this thing with CEO, without he thinking I am involving company policies?
text: This isn't something I've heard before.
text: Still, every company has quirks that some find frustrating.
text: It's hard to believe that people would leave just because they are asked to BCC all their outgoing emails.
text: I suppose it's possible, but usually there are a bunch of reasons leading up to a decision to leave.
text: You could talk with the CEO and calmly indicate that you think this requirement is excessive.
text: You might ask why the CEO feels this is necessary, so you can learn the thinking from their point of view.
text: Unless you know for a fact this an actual reason that some folks have left, I wouldn't bring it up.
text: Be prepared if the CEO hears what you have to say but indicates that you are required to do it anyway.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/7777/Joe Strazzere
score: 23
sents: text: You mention "outgoing" emails so I am going to assume that means emails to people outside of your company such as clients.
text: You also specify that the BCC address is ceo_bcc@example.com
text: so this tells me that this is an unmonitored mailbox.
text: Based on my observations above the CEO is probably trying to achieve a few things: Get company employees to actually craft their emails and be respectful when communicating with people that affect the company's bottom-line.
text: In general, people act better when they think someone is watching.
text: Stay involved in the day-to-day information of the company as it runs in real time.
text: Maybe the CEO has his secretary write up a daily report of any important conversations.
text: Prevent a situation where something is called into question and have a readily available paper trail.
text: No more of "Oh, I can't find that email" or "I never got that!"
text: While I do understand that in a proper work environment the system administrator should be able to BCC the CEO automatically, I am led to believe that #1 could be the leading cause of this policy.
text: It is also possible that the company does not have administrative access to the email server such as when a hosting provider gives free accounts and everyone logs in via web browser.
text: It boils down to: If you are in a position to speak on behalf of the company then the company needs to know what it said.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/17532/MonkeyZeus
score: 11
sents: text: How big is the company you work for?
text: In the relatively small company I currently work for, the project manager (who is a director in the company) has us CC him when we email the customer as he is involved very closely in many discussions and is daily queried by the customer C-level execs on any and all projects we are working on for them.
text: It could be that your CEO is in the same boat and needs to know what his team is doing in order to stay on top of customer queries.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/29557/user1666620
score: 7
sents: text: Is it normal behavior of all companies?
text: How do I discuss this thing with CEO, without he thinking I am involving company policies?
text: No,
text: but you either abide by company policies or get sacked/leave.
text: Unless you are in a position to change policy there isn't much point in getting upset over something that small.
text: In theory if it's a company email they can do whatever they want including forwarding copies of all your mail to the CEO without you even knowing if they have it set up like that..
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/40669/Kilisi
score: 5
sents: text: I feel like this is too much
text: and it is frustrating.
text: I think some employees are leaving company because of these type of strict policies.
text: Sorry but mind your own business.
text: People leaving or joining company for whatever reasons is not your headache.
text: If your CEO requires you to BCC him/her on each email that you send from company account then do just that, your boss decides what jobs you get.
text: If I were you i would go to my boss and ask him in an informal way to have the Email admin set it up in a way that each email is automatically sent to him as bcc every time its sent.
text: And if he asks why I would tell him i tend to forget sometimes
text: and I don't want to inadvertently break any rules.
text: This way the boss gets what he wants and employees get what they want, they don't have the inconvenience of remembering to bcc him every time and they can just focus on the content of the email.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/13943/Hanky Panky
score: 3
sents: text: Tomorrow if you join a new company, and your Senior / Mentor asks you to BCC him on all your outgoing emails, so he can monitor and guide you where required, would you still complain?
text: So what's different here?
text: Bigger companies have the liberty to hire auditors, email etiquette trainers etc.
text: etc.
text: , while the CEO wants to do it himself, this being a smaller company.
text: Chill, he's the CEO, he's micromanaging, so he could ensure quality and provide feedback where applicable.
text: This is not only saving his job but yours too.
text: - My Opinion.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/88394/NikhilV
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
No, this is not normal. You should try to discuss with the CEO why they think this is necessary. Point out to them calmly why you think it is excessive.
The answer to this question is subjective, but this is not generally considered to be 'normal' behaviour. However, if you feel you need to raise this with your boss, consider asking them first for an explanation of why this policy is in place so that you also understand their point of view.