A manager “friends” a subordinate on a social networking site: sign of camraderie or a creepy legal liability?

It’s the later, says attorney Michael Schmidt in the National Law Journal.

A few reasons he and other lawyers recommend against it:

1. Many employees think its creepy — in a recent survey by Office Team, 47% of employees said they don’t like seeing a friend request from their boss. Sure, that’s less than half, but it’s probably not worth the risk of really bothering a good performer.
2. It smacks of favoritism — If anyone doesn’t get a friend request from the boss, that’s not going to look good.
3. Managers could learn too much about their employees — which could come back to haunt the company.

Say an employee lists membership in a religious organization on her Facebook page and is friended by her boss. Later, she’s fired for poor performance. Now, she could have a chance to argue her boss fired her because he learned about her religious affiliation.

Other kinds of info managers could find out: sexual orientation, medical problems and political affiliation, all of which could theoretically form the basis for a lawsuit.

According to the Office Team survey, 48% of managers are uncomfortable being online friends with subordinates. Just as well, many lawyers say — they’re better off not doing it, anyway.

Tags: Facebook, friend, law