The dangers of Facebook in the workplace

A recent article in the Winnipeg Free Press discusses how social networking sites like Facebook (ditto for MySpace and YouTube) can cause upheaval in the workplace if employees aren't careful.  In the case of the employees at the heart of this article, the negative comments they made about their supervisor on Facebook were discovered and they ended up facing disciplinary action for making such comments.  As pointed out in the article, employees must be aware of the fact that whether they are posting entries on these types of sites at the office or on their own time, if those entries harm their employer's reputation or cause a poisoning of the workplace, the employer has the legal right to mete out appropriate discipline.

From a human rights perspective, employers and employees need to be aware of the potential dangers of postings on websites or weblogs relating to their workplaces.  Employees need to understand that discriminatory or harassing blog or web entries that they make regarding co-workers may well be considered in the same vein as if they actually made those comments verbally in the workplace.  The big difference is that unlike with verbal comments which you could later deny you ever said (subject to someone having overheard you, of course), web entries can be located and linked back to you making it just a tad harder to deny you had any part in the creation of the comments.  There's also the issue of distribution.  Once your comments are out in cyberspace, you never know where they are going to end up and who is going to end up reading them.  Case in point, the situation noted in the Free Press.  Employers need to understand that just as they can be found vicariously liable for failing to take reasonable steps to stop harassing verbal comments in the workplace, so too they can potentially be found liable for failing to put a stop to similar types of comments that are occuring on sites like Facebook if they knew or ought to have known they were being made. 

So, how can employers best protect themselves in these kinds of situations?  A three-fold approach is key:

1. a workplace policy addressing the appropriate use of technology such as the internet, including blogging, text messaging, etc., should be put in place;
2. employees should be thoroughly educated on the policy and the potential ramifications for violating it;
3. employers should be vigilant about enforcing the policy.

Comments

[Nuclearrain]

Too many people attempt a Jekyll Hyde persona. Act professional at work, then let everything go after 4:30. Makes sense to me to aspire to being who I am in all spheres of my life.

But how do employers deal with cyber-bullying - which is not limited to the school-age people? It is almost as though we require information bloodhounds and enforcable policies with enough teeth to discourage such behaviour. But how far is too far?

How do we find the balance between monitoring (ie. Big Brother) and apathy?

[Donna Seale]

You are quite right that policies "with teeth" are needed to spell out to employees that harassment of co-workers via the internet is prohibited. But, I don't think that that necessarily leads to employers having to spend their time looking over the shoulders of their employees or surfing the net to find out whether any of their employees are breaching the policy. What it does mean is that if an employer becomes aware of this kind of behaviour either because an employee has complained to them about it directly or, for example, they hear through the office grapevine of such behaviour occuring, the employer has to act, confirm whether what they have become aware of is factual and enforce the policy.

As an example, there was a case a number of years ago in British Columbia involving male employees who sent an e-mail around the office regarding one of their female co-workers making derogatory comments about her. A hard copy of the e-mail ended up being posted on the company bulletin board. A supervisor found out about the e-mail posted on the board. Eventually, the female co-worker found out about the e-mail and it had a tremendous impact on her ability to perform her job working in the same environment as a bunch of employees who now knew about these comments. She complained to management. So, here, the existence of the harassing e-mail came to the attention of two levels of the company's management. They weren't looking for the e-mail -- they just became aware of it and because they then had knowledge of the comments made about the co-worker, were legally obligated to do something about it. In this case, the employer reacted by firing the employees, a decision which was ultimately upheld by the court.

So, that's where I think the balance is between -- as you put it -- Big Brother and apathy.

[Murray Moman]

The other component that employers need to be concerned about is the addictive aspects of Facebook, not just the content being posted. Numerous studies indicate the amount of "time wasted" on the job and Facebook is now a major driver behind this, IMHO. I personally know workers who have this page open all day on their computers, and spend a significant amount of time updated/reviewing the site. The nature of the site itself is very addictive and employers need to be concerned about productivity.

[Donna Seale]

Excellent point, Murray. It is this addictiveness that you refer to that has led a number of businesses and government organizations (City of Winnipeg, for example) to ban Facebook in the workplace. Easier for them to get it out of the workplace completely than to have to worry about controlling employee behaviour connected to the use of it. Thanks for your comments.