Last month, a New York court ruled that a Buffalo-based nonprofit must reinstate five employees that were fired for posting some not so nice comments about a coworker on their personal Facebook pages.
Sounds like the organization needed to have a social media policy in place, right? Turns out, they did have a policy that explicitly banned harassing coworkers, seemingly giving the supervisor grounds to fire the five employees. However, a New York judge saw things differently, finding that the Facebook posts were protected speech and aimed at improving work conditions.
The organization had taken the critical step of developing a social media policy for its employees, yet still ran into serious issues. What more can companies do to prevent these things from happening?
- If you don’t have a social media policy yet, make one. (Learn how here.)
- Bring in an expert to train all employees.
- Put an escalation policy in place.
- Don’t be evil.
Read more about the case at The Next Web.
Keith Trivitt 12:12 pm on October 3, 2011 Permalink
Interesting that even though the company had a social media policy in place that seemingly banned the type of online activities that the employees were engaging in, the company’s hiring of said employees was still ruled impermissible by the judge.
To me, this brings up a couple of issues regarding social media that companies must address in the near term:
1. Get a social media policy in place … NOW. But more importantly, ensure it is thoroughly vetted by your legal department and/or outside counsel to review for issues such as the one addressed in this Facebook case.
2. Make clear in company social media policy whether online actions engaged in by employees while they are “off the clock” or not using corporate computers will be subject to the social media policy. This falls under the issue of companies trying to create a blanket social media policy that attempts to cover everything, but in doing so, it really covers nothing, and could be ruled impermissible in court, as was the case in this incident.
Bottom line: like many things in business, the devil is in the details. Be specific in creating your social media policy and make sure legal is involved and backs your plan every step of the way.
Pat McCarthy 7:59 am on October 5, 2011 Permalink
Hi Keith,
You make some really good points. Just because a Social Media Policy is in place doesn’t mean it’s iron-clad. We recommend having such policies be living documents, ready to be modified as online behavior evolves.
Thanks for the comments!
Pat
cksyme 10:30 am on October 24, 2011 Permalink
I think the key here is personal Facebook pages. Courts have not been willing to discipline these cases unless the employees are on their personal pages AT work when the policy says they cannot, or if they are using the company Facebook page to gripe. I am not surprised. However, I hope this ruling doesn’t deter people from having policies, as they should be an informing documents, not necessarily restrictive documents.
Pat McCarthy 8:37 am on October 25, 2011 Permalink
I doubt this case will deter companies from crafting social media policies, but it will certainly affect how the policies are drafted.
Also, I agree that they should be informing documents or guidelines instead of a list of rules. It will be more conducive to a happy work environment and shows trust in employees.
Thanks for the comment!