All over the news right now is the story of a teenage office worker from Essex who has been sacked for saying her job's boring on Facebook. Is it really a sackable offence? This seems to have divided the opinion of the journalists and broadcast presenters I'm hearing right now.
Apparently her boss stumbled across her comments and didn't appreciate the attitude, so let her go. Here's the Mail's (as you'd expect) perspective.
For years employers have toiled over issues like this. Most recently with Facebook, and before that other social networks that let us express ourselves, share photos and vent online. Remember the 'Bastardstones' blogger? This is not new at all.
So it's not hard to imagine yourself in a position of HR and comms departments in a organisations that are coming to terms with how social networking is affecting staff morale, company reputation and plain old person to person relations. It's not just the 'sackable offence' that needs to be predicted and planned for. It's the way semi-private / semi-public online discussions can affect a workforce, customer base and stakeholder group that needs to be considered.
I have taught media courses within my department with regards this issue. Unfortunately my company's policy appears to be 'out of site out of mind' for many of the top level managers but in communications we are working hard to utilise it.
As much as it can cause damaging press it can also create a postivie profile of you/your company as an employer.
As with any child the more you tell it not to do something the more it will want to do it. Rather than banning it completely perhaps simply educate people on the effects of social media both good and bad. These consequences may not just effect your current employer but also potential ones since many now check out recruitment candidate's facebook profiles before offering an interview - if they've seen you bad mouthing a company in the past they may not be so willing to put themselves in the firing line.
It all comes down to lack of knowledge in my view - I can guarantee that the comments made by 'bastardstones' may have been made in the corridors with fellow colleagues but certainly not made in the boardroom where his CEO sat - social media needs to be treated the same. It may feel like you are simply conversing with your friends/family/colleagues but it is also a public domain allowing anyone to participate and/or view.
Simple mantra - if it's not something you would say to your boss directly don't say it on the WWW at all.
Posted by: Emma Long | February 27, 2009 at 01:45 PM
It is important that on the working premises workers must be given orientations about the effect of social media sites today. So educating them with the pros and cons of this social sites to the company's image should be done.
Posted by: PC Man | March 03, 2009 at 01:24 PM
If this went to court would the company have to prove that her job was NOT boring? ;-)
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