When Dan Leone vented his frustration with the Philadelphia Eagles for failing to sign Brian Dawkins on as a player, his expletive-filled Facebook status update landed him in the national media spotlight virtually overnight. It also landed him among the ranks of the unemployed after his employer of six years, the Philadelphia Eagles, fired him from his job as a stadium operations worker.
Similarly, Connor Riley, a 22 year old graduate student, became an overnight internet sensation and inadvertently earned herself the name “Cisco Fatty” when she tweeted “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” With her new-found notoriety came the loss of her job opportunity after Cisco management read her tweet and rescinded their offer.
Alex Hadesty was fired simply for sharing his enthusiasm for marijuana on Facebook.
And most of us already know what happened to General Stanley McChrystal after he tweeted, “Minister yammering diplomatic bull. I’d rather have my [expletive] kicked by a room full of people. As if they could. LOL” For this, and other inappropriate comments, he too was fired, leaving the rest of us wondering what he could possibly have been thinking.
Fired by Facebook
What General McChrystal and thousands of others have learned is that getting fired is down-right easy now that social media is at hand. So many people have been fired due to their online activities that there is now a Facebook page dedicated to those sharing their job-loss stories. It is an amusing, if somewhat depressing site to visit.
The inescapable fact that emerges when you peruse Fired by Facebook is that these ex-employees had no idea that their posts could get them fired. They didn’t know that if an employee’s post or tweet is publicly available and not actively restricted through privacy settings, it can be actionable – even if the post had absolutely nothing to do with their employer. Their surprise and dismay is understandable.
Before Facebook, companies relied on, and employees generally understood, their corporate polices relating to appropriate behavior. But those policies are largely understood to apply to conduct while one is physically at the workplace or otherwise on duty.
Today, the traditional barriers of “work time” and “home time” are increasingly blurred by social media and smart technology, which have transformed when and where people work. In the new frontier of Web 2.0, inadvertent or inappropriate comments can virally spread online with lightning speed, damaging individual careers and corporate reputations along the way. Not surprisingly, employers are looking for ways to manage their risks.
Social Media and the Workplace
At a recent PSDA conference, one print industry executive offered that his company has satisfactorily addressed the threat of employee online misconduct because it forbids access to social media sites at work and has erected firewalls to prevent access to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, these strategies do nothing to prevent employees from posting damaging information while at home (as the employees profiled at the beginning of this article did). And even at work, those with an ounce of IT creativity can circumvent a fire wall or, easier yet, simply pick up their smart phone and tweet away.
What is an employer to do? The answer is simple: do what employers have been doing all along, namely, set expectations of employee behavior through corporate policies in employee handbooks and educate and communicate with employees about what can be considered inappropriate conduct.
The good news is that existing policies that are part of most well-designed employee handbooks are usually sufficient to take action against employees’ online misconduct. The bad news is that relying on them alone does little to prevent unfortunate social media gaffs from happening – and avoiding gaffs ultimately is the objective of any company policy.
A Solid Policy Foundation
Without question, companies of all sizes, no matter how small they are, should have an employee handbook that addresses policies and procedures relating to employment. When written correctly and applied consistently, standard policies provide an effective way of setting expectations, educating employees about their roles in the company, and addressing the “but I didn’t know” response when discipline or termination becomes necessary. Applicable policies related to employee behavior include Code of Conduct, Non-Discrimination, Harassment, Non-Disparage, and Confidentiality.
Employers should also have a policy on Use of Technology that covers use of hardware, software, e-mail, telephone, voicemail, internet and other communication platforms. Technology policies generally emphasize that technology and communication platforms are owned by the company and all company policies (particularly those listed above) apply to their use. These policies also set the expectation that employee communications will be monitored and that employees should not assume that any communication using company devices or platforms are private or confidential.
Social Media Policy
Given the pervasiveness of social media today, employers are well advised to develop a specific social media policy to complement the policies listed above. When drafting it, ensure that it is relevant and speaks to your organization’s culture. If it doesn’t, employees are likely to misunderstand or simply ignore the policy altogether. While starting from scratch can be a painful process, we don’t recommend cutting and pasting someone else’s policy for this reason. We also recommend seeking input and advice from a person or group of individuals within your organization who know and use social media. Their experience can be invaluable.
The following is some sample language that you may want to consider incorporating into your own vernacular:
- Employee Conduct at Home and Work: All conduct and social media use, whether personal or professional, whether contributed at work or away from work, and whether or not company computers or resources are used, must comply with all company policies including those relating to harassment, discrimination, code of conduct, confidentiality, non-disparage and technology use. Any communication in any forum that can be construed as threatening, disparaging, harassing or discriminatory is prohibited.
- Social Media at Work: Use of social media during work hours is not permitted unless it is part of the employee’s assigned duties.
- Confidentiality: Internal company matters of any nature should never be posted or discussed online, even if the company name is not mentioned in the communication or employee profile.
- FTC Posting: In conformance with recent Federal Trade Commission regulations, if blogging or posting about products, services, company policy or any matter directly or indirectly related to the company, employees must identify their relationship to the company and state that posts are the employee’s personal view and not those of the company [otherwise the employee and the company can be fined by the FTC].
- NLRA Conformance: Nothing in this policy will limit the employee’s rights under the National Labor Relations Act. [Recently, the National Labor Relations Board brought suit against a company that fired an employee because of disparaging comments she made about her supervisor on Facebook. The NLRB maintains the employer’s enforcement of a non-disparage policy was too broad and violated the employee’s right to discuss wages, working conditions and unionization, which are protected under the NLRA. When drafting your policy, all attempts should be made to ensure that your policy does not chill an employee’s right under the NLRA to discuss wages, working conditions and unionization. A decision is expected in early 2011.]
- Policy Violations: Any violation of the policy is subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination.
Finally, consider including in your policy some guidelines on popular social networking, such as supervisors should not “friend” subordinates, that employees may feel free to reject friend requests from any employee, client or individual related to the company without repercussion, and that employees are encouraged to decline requests to provide LinkedIn recommendations and may do so without repercussion. Offering these guidelines will help save employees and employers the headache of resolving thorny online personnel issues.
Once it is developed, spend the time necessary to educate and talk with your employees about the social media policy. The more they understand it, the better off they and you will be. And a word or two to employees about what constitutes privacy and confidentiality online is certainly time well spent, particularly for younger “Generation Y” employees, who are accustomed to sharing personal information online.
What businesses are quickly learning is that social media in the workplace offer significant opportunities and sizeable threats. Simply throwing up a fire wall will do little to address those threats. The best approach is to establish and communicate your expectations of employee’s online behavior through a social media policy that is tailored to the specific needs and culture of your organization. Because in the end, all we’re really trying to do is to spare your employee the unfortunate experience of being the next contributor to Fired by Facebook.
