It could almost read like a personals ad: mature, rules-oriented, ethical and upright professional seeks partner who is strong, law-abiding and willing to offer support in times of hard labor.
Many companies are still struggling to find the perfect match between workplace guidelines and legal precedence — and how far social media policies can extend outside of the traditional four walls. What was seen as the opportunity to create legal precedence — or at the very least clarity — regarding this, was the highly watched case of Souza vs AMR.
Back in 2009, Dawnmarie Souza, an emergency medical technician with ambulance service company American Medical Response of Connecticut, was fired after criticizing her supervisor on Facebook. Her case was scheduled to be heard before a federal labor board judge in Hartford, Connecticut, on Feb. 8. But what many companies were hoping would be a way to establish legal precedence on workplace behavior and social media has now been settled out of court, leaving still many unanswered questions as to what is and what’s not enforceable when it comes to social media participation.
Employees may be rejoicing, but some legal experts are disappointed that the National Labor Relations Board reached a settlement on Feb. 7 with a company that fired an employee for bad mouthing her boss on Facebook, dashing hopes for a legal precedent to guide employers’ social media policies.
Tagged as:
career management,
employees,
guidelines,
labor,
social media policies,
social media policy,
workforce,
workplace guidelines
I recently came across this post by Lawrence Liu called, Social Media and New Roles For Employees. It is a wonderful post regarding employee roles in social media, the importance of aligning with marketing so that employees understand go-to-market messaging, as well as some thoughts on being translucent as opposed to transparent. This post also ties very nicely in with Jeremiah Owang’s discussion on the five ways companies let employees participate in social media.
Dan Schawbel recently posted a blog entry with the same title and suggested the following social media oriented roles for employees to take on:
- Messenger: As an employee, you can hold our own viral campaign by tapping your fellow employees for support, enabling them with a sharable message and link, and then empower them to promote. Just like you, they have their own personal brand, with a following of friends that can carry your message to an even larger audience.
- Spokesperson: Social media has given rise to a world where anyone can become a spokesperson for their company, whether endorsed or not. There may be corporate policies in place that prevent you from being aggressive online, but as long as you are transparent and use common sense, your company should sanction your participation. Typically, employee bloggers have to cite a disclaimer on their blog, stating that “The views expressed on this site are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or its clients.” Even though you have a disclaimer, you still have to be a good corporate citizen!
Tagged as:
corporate social media,
Dan Schawbel,
Employee Engagement,
employees,
Lawrence Liu
It could almost read like a personals ad: mature, rules-oriented, ethical and upright professional seeks partner who is strong, law-abiding and willing to offer support in times of hard labor.