Social media and the workplace

M M

mat

Guest
A friend of mine was dismissed for writing a satirical post management deemed racist yesterday.

The company does has a social media policy but this hasn't been agreed with the unions because they thought it was too invasive into members personal lives outside of work.

The people that know him knew it was but they've used it as an excuse to sack him and deny two others promotions who liked it.

It got me thinking about how some workplaces seem to think they own you outside of your contract hours and then use your SM to punish you.
 
Tell him or her to speak to an employment lawyer if they don't already have plans to. These policies certainly seem to be in conflict with freedom of expression.

Obviously there is a balancing act between discrimination policies but the sense I get is these policies are more often used as a convenient method to dismiss employees.

In the meantime it is probably best practice to put as much distance and barriers between your social media and employers. Use of private profiles, alternate name/anonymity, no reference to occupation or employer in bio and don't give access to untrustworthy colleagues who could turn grass.

Should strengthen argument that you weren't bringing employer into disrepute if there is no discernible link (even with googling) between them and you.
 
Fode N The Hole said:
Tell him or her to speak to an employment lawyer if they don't already have plans to. These policies certainly seem to be in conflict with freedom of expression.

Obviously there is a balancing act between discrimination policies but the sense I get is these policies are more often used as a convenient method to dismiss employees.

In the meantime it is probably best practice to put as much distance and barriers between your social media and employers. Use of private profiles, alternate name/anonymity, no reference to occupation or employer in bio and don't give access to untrustworthy colleagues who could turn grass.

Should strengthen argument that you weren't bringing employer into disrepute if there is no discernible link (even with googling) between them and you.
Click to expand...

Everything here pretty much. Someone I had in my LinkedIn contacts was feeding back to my manager that i'd expressed interest in a future career change. Be careful about who you provide access to.
 
What did the post entail?

Best just keeping off social media, or if you use it, do as I do. Have an account with the appropriate security settings and don't have any current or recently former colleagues as friends or connections on it. The modern world has made the need to separate your work from your private life more than ever. Mixing both never ends well.
 
If you are in certain professions and serious about your work then SM and the work place shouldn't be mixed. I kept my FB private and eventually just deactivated the account but kept messenger to keep up with a few pals. I use twitter but use an alias which my work place shouldn't trace back to me, not that I post anything I shouldn't.

I don't understand people who are connected with people from work and post risque content or things that could bring the company in to disrepute. Even if you don't have work connections, is it really worth the risk?

When SM first launch you could get away with treating it like a virtual world (which it is) but now the approach should be that you treat it as if you have a physical audience right in front of you.

Ultimately it isn't the business of your employer what you do in your spare time but people should just use common sense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mat
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.