Company’s rep easy to trash on Facebook: What HR can do
November 16, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Employment law, HR Tech, Special Report - Tech, policies
Are your managers concerned employees are wasting too much time on Facebook and Twitter? Well, they might have something bigger to worry about.
The popularity of social-networking sites is growing more rapidly than ever. According to the latest figures, about half of adults have a Facebook and/or Myspace account, and the number of Twitter users has grown by 1,300% in the past year.
So odds are a good amount of people in your company are logging on to those sites fairly often. Though some employees probably waste part of the work day checking their accounts, most experts say those situations should be dealt with like any other performance problem — on a case-by-case basis.
The real problem, they warn, is the potential damage to the company’s reputation and its bottom line.
According to a recent Deloitte survey, 74% of workers admitted that social networking sites make it “easier” to hurt an employer’s reputation. That’s a fact several companies already know. For example:
- Last year, British Airways fired a group of employees who used Facebook to call the airline’s passengers “fat and smelly”
- A Pennsylvania high school recently fired a teacher for, among other things, bragging about her alcohol use on Myspace. She sued for freedom of speech, but her case was tossed because she had no right to speech that made the school look bad.
To keep the risk at bay, attorney Keisha-Ann Gray, writing in Human Resource Executive, recommends drafting a policy that:
- Reminds employees they have no expectation of privacy when they use the Internet at work
- Prohibits employees from using the Web in any way that’s contrary to the company’s interests, whether done at work or at home, and
- Establishes that other company policies (anti-harassment, confidentiality, etc.) apply to what employees do online.
What you can’t do
Some states have laws that can limit the reach of a company’s social networking policy. For example, states like New York, Colorado and North Dakota have laws prohibiting companies from firing employees for legal activities they partake in outside of work.
However, most of laws make an exception when the employer is directly affected by the employee’s actions. Check your state laws to be safe before drafting a policy.
Tags: Facebook, policy, social networking
November 17th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
“Prohibits employees from using the Web in any way that’s contrary to the company’s interests, whether done at work or at home.”
What exactly would that entail? It would certainly be against my company’s interests if I were seeking employment with another company. If I do it from home, however, why should that be of any concern?
Should that mean my Web policy at work (no faith-based sites, no social networking sites) be enacted on my home computer? Then again, I guess it’s not about what I do online as much as it’s about how I represent myself online… Does that mean blogging is out of the question as well?
November 17th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I don’t understand why emloyees being on Facebook, MySpace, etc. at work is even an issue anymore. Are any of these companies aware that they do have the ability to BLOCK sites such as this?!
November 17th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
We block all social networking sites and many other sites at work due to the fact that employees were spending all their time on these sites instead of working. It’s real easy to do just ask IT.
But my question is why any employee would have a manager as a friend on any social website they use on their personal time??
Just how do prospective employers look at this when you have to accept them as a friend in the first place?
Last but not least why make yourself look like a fool to all your friends and family by posting stupid stuff? This one gets me the most. Maybe I’m too old school.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I’m with Barbara… use common sense regarding who you friend and what you post online and for pete’s sake… don’t air your dirty laundry in front of the whole world, keep it in the closet where it belongs. A wise person once told me, 90% of people don’t care about your problems and the other 10% are glad you have them.
November 18th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Our issue is that we would like to block facebook because it interferes with productivity, but our company has it’s own facebook and employees are encouraged, via our newsletter, to visit it, so…looking for advice on handling a situation that we’ve created ourselves!
November 19th, 2009 at 9:52 am
That’s a tough one! But is the company encouraging visiting FB during work hours? I would think that it would be something people would do in their off time. But of course that would need to be put in writing, I would think.