Social Networking. Employer Security Concern?
At a recent chamber event I heard a presentation advising employers that they should be doing fairly regular post-hire background checks on employees in addition to pre-hire checks. The arguments were for were pretty persuasive. The issue got me thinking about social networking sites. The sites, and therefore the lives of their users, are increasingly transparent as they are indexed by Google and other search engines. Users have some control over who views their information but for many professionals, those who want to be seen on LinkedIn, Spoke, Plexo, and perhaps Facebook and MySpace, they invite the public to view them.
Sadly, I’ve seen that many people don’t always use the best judgment as to what could or should be reported in these public space – admittedly this is more of an issue with Facebook and MySpace than the others.
At any rate, it got me thinking if these online arenas should be monitored by our employers [if they aren't already] as a means to protect their brand. I suspect the answer would be a resounding ‘Yes’ from security minded folks out there [and probably a few hardworking brand managers too] and balanced by an equally adamant ‘No Way’ from privacy advocates. And while I might philosophically fall in line with the privacy group I’m also of the mind that we’ve put this information out there ourselves. We control it and if we can’t show some basic good judgment we probably deserve whatever consequences result.
So I’m curious if anyone has heard of a case in which an employee was ‘let go’ because of a social network profile that wasn’t consistent with the corporate brand? Or, if someone was let go because it was clear from their LinkedIn [or CareerBuilder etc] profile that they were looking to leave the employer anyway? Or, if not, do you think it is a proper investigative avenue for employers? When we join a social networking site do we surrender our rights to privacy?
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Comments
RRomashka, an interesting question. I am not able to give legal advice so you may wish to get another opinion elsewhere, but it seems to me it would depend on how a particular profile is utilized during your employment. If the main purpose of the profile [or profiles in question] is to promote and advance the goals of the employer and your profile represents you as a employee of the company, then they may be able to claim ownership of it. In my experience, past employers have owned all of the work I produced during the period of my employment.
My employer recently fired the receptionist for things posted to her Facebook account. She had a humorous post about one of our dealers being on drugs. This was considered harmful to the corporate branding so she was terminated (although another reason was that she was posting multiple times while at work).
@tofudisan so we see that some employers are watching our social media profiles. As I said in the post, there is a part of me that says somethings should be private. But, the fact remains that my comments, your comments, and those of your former co-worker’s are out there on the internet for anyone to see. Businesses have the right to protect their interests and the action you report is not too surprising to me. The lesson to me is — use good judgment about what you post. Think of it as posting headlines in your local newspaper. Only put up things you are comfortable with everyone and anyone seeing today…and in the future.
I have a question if social network profile (or contact list) can be held by the employer after the employee left, calling it as company’s intellectual property.