Workplace Social Media Policies and the NRLB
7:39 PM |
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1) How should employers handle situations where employees
are expressing negative opinions of the company via social media?
Employers’ responses to employees’
negative social media posts about the company should vary depending on content
and language. For example, if an employee posts a rant including hate speech or
deeply offensive material, the employee should be terminated and the offensive
post should be deleted. The organization should also publicly apologize and
denounce the offensive content. This approach would be similar to the IAC’s
response after its PR executive Justine Sacco posted a controversial tweet (Stelter, 2013).
However, if the rant included inappropriate language, but nothing likely to be
construed as hate speech, the organization should publicly apologize for the
employee’s behavior and ask her to delete the original tweet, without
necessarily terminating employment. It may also be beneficial to analyze
employees’ negative posts about their organization, in case the complaint
indicates an underlying problem in the organizational culture that needs to be
fixed.
2) As an employer, how would you create a social media
policy that balances both employee rights and company interests, or would you
simply choose to prohibit social media use on company time? If you choose the
latter, please explain why.
I would not prohibit social media use on company
time. Instead, I would create a social media policy that aligns with the
National Labor Relations Act, and trust employees to exercise sound judgment. I
believe that if a company has good corporate culture, its employees will
generally be happy, engaged, and less likely to disparage the company on social
media. To me, good corporate culture involves treating employees well, providing
continuous training and development opportunities, upholding a solid set of
core values that all staff members genuinely support, having open communication
throughout the organization, and hiring people who are passionate about the
company and its values. This reflects Zappos’ social media approach (Gordhamer, 2010), and I
think other organizations should follow this example.
References:
Collins, J. M. (2012, February 1).
NRLB Report: Employers’ Social Media Policies Must be Narrow, Must not Restrict
Right to Engage in Protected Activities | The National Law Review. Retrieved
October 10, 2014, from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/nrlb-report-employers-social-media-policies-must-be-narrow-must-not-restrict-right-t
Gordhamer, S. (2010, April 12).
Zappos CEO on How To Deliver Happiness with Social Media [INTERVIEW]. Retrieved
October 10, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/zappos-interview/
Halpern, S. J. (2012, December 3).
When is Your Company’s Social Media Policy an Unfair Labor Practice? Recent
NLRB Decisions Offer Long-Awaited Guidance for Employers | The National Law
Review. Retrieved October 10, 2014, from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/when-your-company-s-social-media-policy-unfair-labor-practice-recent-nlrb-decisions-
Stelter, B. (2013, December 22).
Ex-PR exec Justine Sacco apologizes for AIDS in Africa tweet - CNN.com.
Retrieved October 10, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/22/world/sacco-offensive-tweet/
4 comments
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your position however, Justine's tweet was not negative against the organization. Her post was distasteful, yes, but it did not outwardly or even insinuate negativity against the organization. Being that her position involved PR I can probably say it's safe to assume that her job description indicated that she is expected to promote a positive reputation as an affiliate of the organization. She also probably signed a policy from the handbook stating that she will conduct herself in a professional manner as a representative of the company as to not upset the reputation of the company, as well as a discrimination in the work place policy. However, here inlies the problem, do we know if she was on company time? Was this written from a work device? Was the trip to Africa for work? These are all points that would be brought up in a court preceding, if she decided to file suit for wrongful termination. Not that I support her, at all, because I do not, but she just might have a case dependent upon how their policies are worded. I can't tell you how many handbooks I've revised based off of losing cases on a minor technicality. For instance, the handbook states, "You must call if you are going to be late or absent" and the employee calls 15 minutes after their shift starts. A judge will say, "well they called, your policy does not specify that the call needed to be made prior to the start of their shift ". That is why these policies need to be clear and be written strategically.
Hi Jackie,
DeleteThanks for the response! I agree that Justine Sacco’s case was different in the way you described. However, I was focusing on the type of action Sacco’s employers took, more so than her behavior. I wanted to use the IAC’s reaction (termination and public apology) as an example of how an organization should handle employees’ social media posts that are both disparaging to the company and highly offensive—e.g. a Facebook status that reads, “I hate working at Company X because the managers are all a bunch of [bigoted slur here]. This company is awful.” In that situation, the insensitive content should take precedence in deciding how to handle the employee, and the company’s approach should be similar to that of Sacco’s employers. I did not intend to explore Justine Sacco’s situation specifically, since—as you mentioned—her offensive tweet didn’t disparage the organization, and she was probably expected to adhere to a specific code of conduct as a PR professional. Apologies for being unclear; I hope that makes more sense.
Overall, you made a great point about the importance of a clear social media policy, and I think organizations should give employees a guideline of prohibited behaviors (Scott, 2013, p. 91-92) without infringing on their rights under the NLRA.
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteMost definitely. The policy should indicate clear cut "do's and dont's" for social media in accordance with NLRA guidelines.
Jackie
Hi Lydia,
ReplyDeleteNice job on your post! I like how you suggested using the National Relations Act as a blue print for putting together a social media strategy for the workplace. I too agree that creating a sense of "Inclusion" for employees and social media use in the workplace actually reinforces and protects the credibility of the brand or company. Banning employees from using social media may cause a sense of "inferiority" that may result in an unfavorable public image brought on by an organization's employees. Creating a sense of monitoring and control by including employees as part of the the overall strategy could potentially alleviate this affect.