Thanks for the comment. Did the policy work? My gut feeling on this is that it is a dangerous course for employers to follow, because you can’t always trust your employees to be smart. Having said that, I’d be interested to know what the company’s experience of it was.

KInd regards

Michael

Thanks for this great comment. It’s a very interesting situation. I didn’t see the original tweet but from the report in the Telegraph (which you kindly referred me to) it looks like the employee’s comments were completely unacceptable. Sexist and/or homophobic comments could lead to civil or even criminal claims and be very damaging to an employer. I agree with you that if the tweet/facebook update/blog post etc identified the employer directly then that must be a disciplinary matter, especially where the employer’s own computer systems are used even if outside formal office hours (but for many employees there is no longer a fixed 9 -5 routine anyway).

The harder area to cover is where the employee publishes something online that doesn’t immediately reference the employer, but comes out later on. Let’s say the Vodafone employee here had sent the tweets from his own twitter account from his own personal iPhone/Blackberry in his own time, but after an uproar he was “outed” as being a Vodafone employee – would that be a disciplinary offence? I think it probably would be but only because Vodafone has a massive reputation and it would damage them. To be safe they would need (and they may well have) a policy covering this sort of situation otherwise they might face a claim for unfair dismissal from the employee if they sacked him. If the employer was a very low profile outfit with no established brand then I would take a different view.

This is a similar sort of situation to the employee who takes cocaine on a recreational basis in a nightclub when off duty and gets busted. Similar reputational issues potentially arise for the employer, but if they don’t have a policy stating that any drug use will be considered a disciplinary matter they might have difficulty in defending a claim for unfair dismissal.

We’re also starting to get into the murky depths of “public interest” – does private conduct of the employee affect the employer? – that must be the test and the employer must take a reasonable (and reasoned) approach.

Interesting post. The much publicised Vodafone incident over the weekend will doubtless be seized on by lawyers as an example of why social media policies or restrictions are necessary. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7168310/Vodafone-suspends-employee-over-obscene-Twitter-update.html

My view (and I am not an employment lawyer) is that an employee who sent a Tweet like that outside of work hours which referenced his employer or was sent from an account which was clearly connected with the business would be guilty of misconduct regardless of whether a specific policy was in place. I don’t know whether you agree?

I actually think that Social Media policies do need to cover what employees do in their own time – to the extent that their social media use references or identifies their employer of their job.

Most organisations presumably have an internet use policy which sets out what you can and can’t do using their network – but given the wide use of mobile technology for Twitter clients etc. this isn’t really enough any more.

My personal view is that a social media policy sits as an extra layer on top of this and shoudl cover any platform or technology with the employer uses at any time – although I see it more as a set of relatively common sense guidelines rather than being too prescriptive. The main point as you say is to avoid anything which brings the employer into disrepute.

It will be interesting to see how this area develops as cases are heard in the tribunals / Courts.

Thanks for the comment. When I wrote the piece you refer to I had in mind employees accessing social media in the office.

I don’t think employers can enforce guidelines on employees’ use of social media in their own (home) time and on their own computers, apart from saying that such usage shouldn’t bring the employer into disrepute. The example you mention would be a good application of this. I think the way to look at this is to treat any informal corporate activity, like a sports team, as an extension of the office environment. For example, if one member of the office football team made a racist comment on facebook or posted inappropriate photographs it is likely that that may engender bad publicity for the company and could lead to the offended employee suing the employer on the basis that it was vicariously liable.

What do you think?

Are you suggesting that it is reasonable for employers to set guidelines for employees’ out of work use (“but also for private usage.“) or am I simply reading too much in to a slightly ambiguous statement?

An edge case where private mention of the employing company occurred to me last week – corporate sports teams etc may quite reasonably run some of their admin on social networking sites and even have a distinct web presence, without being officially / contractually linked with the employer.