HR Blog

Social networks: threat or opportunity?

A Dutch civil servant, who’s husband’s web log describes how she loathes her boss, is summoned to court but is acquitted. A salesman vividly goes into the details of a most horrid customer he has just met. An executive secretary posts several compromising photos of herself at a party with an office colleague on her personal website. 

Do social network sites pose new legal problems for employers? The answer is no. In the above mentioned examples, the employer can base himself on existing legislation and the employee’s contract to put an end to shenanigans like these. Put simply, an employer does not have to put up with employees airing the companies dirty laundry anywhere including social network sites. Moreover, it is a knife that cuts both ways. A recent Dutch study among 1,700 executives shows that no less than 71% of managers use social network sites as a source of information on new employees. For about 19% of managers, the information they found formed enough reason not to select a certain candidate. A third of Dutch managers control their employees this way and about 30% of the surveyed population were surprised to discover what they found. In the mean time, 62% of managers have designed policies on online behaviour and among 59%, employees are no longer allowed to Hyve, Facebook or Twitter during working hours.
On the other hand, employees who wish to check up on their boss will not find much information of interest. About 95% of managers say to conscientiously think about what they put out to the world online. A majority of employers is online but their presence tends to be limited to professional network sites like LinkedIn.

How do you go about dealing with ‘Facebooking’ colleagues? Do you sometimes use networks to check up on your employees?
 

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