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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Connor Riley, a 22 year old graduate student, became an overnight internet sensation and inadvertently earned herself the name \u201cCisco Fatty\u201d 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 With her new-found notoriety came the loss of her job opportunity after Cisco management read her tweet and rescinded their offer.<\/p>\n
Alex Hadesty was fired simply for sharing his enthusiasm for marijuana on Facebook.<\/p>\n
And most of us already know what happened to General Stanley McChrystal after he tweeted, \u201cMinister yammering diplomatic bull. I\u2019d rather have my [expletive] kicked by a room full of people. As if they could. LOL\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 For this, and other inappropriate comments, he too was fired, leaving the rest of us wondering what he could possibly have been thinking.<\/p>\n
What General McChrystal and thousands of others have learned is that getting fired is down-right easy now that social media is at hand.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It is an amusing, if somewhat depressing site to visit.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know that if an employee\u2019s post or tweet is publicly available and not actively restricted through privacy settings, it can be actionable \u2013 even if the post had absolutely nothing to do with their employer.\u00a0 Their surprise and dismay is understandable.
\nBefore Facebook, companies relied on, and employees generally understood, their corporate polices relating to appropriate behavior.\u00a0 But those policies are largely understood to apply to conduct while one is physically at the workplace or otherwise on duty.<\/p>\n
Today, the traditional barriers of \u201cwork time\u201d and \u201chome time\u201d are increasingly blurred by social media and smart technology, which have transformed when and where people work.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, employers are looking for ways to manage their risks.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.
\nWhat is an employer to do?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The good news is that existing policies that are part of most well-designed employee handbooks are usually sufficient to take action against employees\u2019 online misconduct.\u00a0 The bad news is that relying on them alone does little to prevent unfortunate social media gaffs from happening \u2013 and avoiding gaffs ultimately is the objective of any company policy.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know\u201d response when discipline or termination becomes necessary.\u00a0 Applicable policies related to employee behavior include Code of Conduct, Non-Discrimination, Harassment, Non-Disparage, and Confidentiality.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Given the pervasiveness of social media today, employers are well advised to develop a specific social media policy to complement the policies listed above.\u00a0 When drafting it, ensure that it is relevant and speaks to your organization\u2019s culture.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t, employees are likely to misunderstand or simply ignore the policy altogether.\u00a0 While starting from scratch can be a painful process, we don\u2019t recommend cutting and pasting someone else\u2019s policy for this reason.\u00a0 We also recommend seeking input and advice from a person or group of individuals within your organization who know and use social media.\u00a0 Their experience can be invaluable.<\/p>\n
The following is some sample language that you may want to consider incorporating into your own vernacular:<\/p>\n
Finally, consider including in your policy some guidelines on popular social networking, such as supervisors should not \u201cfriend\u201d 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.\u00a0 Offering these guidelines will help save employees and employers the headache of resolving thorny online personnel issues.<\/p>\n
Once it is developed, spend the time necessary to educate and talk with your employees about the social media policy.\u00a0 The more they understand it, the better off they and you will be.\u00a0 And a word or two to employees about what constitutes privacy and confidentiality online is certainly time well spent, particularly for younger \u201cGeneration Y\u201d employees, who are accustomed to sharing personal information online.
\nWhat 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.\u00a0 The best approach is to establish and communicate your expectations of employee\u2019s 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\u2019re really trying to do is to spare your employee the unfortunate experience of being the next contributor to Fired by Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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.\u00a0 It also landed him among the ranks of the unemployed after his employer of six years, the Philadelphia Eagles, fired him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n