Q. Do employers read through your emails after you leave?
Answer By Anthony Deming July 21, 2019
Systems Administrator (2008–present)
There’s a quote about relationships that I find applies really well, and that I’ll paraphrase here:
When you leave a job take the amount of time you were working there and divide it by 2, that’s how long one or both parties have been thinking about ending it.
If you’re thinking of leaving, your employer probably already has your mailbox on litigation hold.
I’ve worked in IT for a while. Part of my job at each company has been to handle new hires and terminations.
At each company the process for terminating an employee includes setting up the mailbox so that nothing can be deleted from it (it’s called a Litigation Hold).
When the employee deletes something it hides it from them, but doesn’t go anywhere.
If there are any questions about what the employee had been doing, someone will be assigned to go through email by email.
If not, then the whole mailbox gets assigned to whoever takes over their job, and they’re told to review the email to make sure they’re aware of what’s going on with the projects that were left in the lurch.
You might think that it makes a difference whether you’re fired or quit.
There’s a quote about relationships that I find applies really well, and that I’ll paraphrase here: When you leave a job take the amount of time you were working there and divide it by 2, that’s how long one or both parties have been thinking about ending it. If you’re thinking of leaving, your employer probably already has your mailbox on litigation hold.