According to this article in Newstrack India there is a growing trend in the USA for employers to ask new potential new recruits in job interviews for their Facebook log-in details. It may well not be illegal to make the request (although it may breach Facebook’s rules) but why on earth would an employer want to access an employee’s private Facebook account? The information revealed could well prove to be a poisoned chalice.
Mate, don't drink it.
As the wheels fall off time’s winged chariot and Old Father Time is evicted from his nursing home;
And as the Partygoer of Unquenchable Thirst prepares to meet the Office Party of Bitter Experience, it’s that time of the year again: the annual review.
Don't be Rude about Apple
A trickle of Employment Tribunal cases are coming through on dismissals associated with inappropriate or derogatory comments on Facebook. The most recent, being Crisp v Apple Retail Ltd (unreported, as far as I can see) which held that an employee who posted (unspecified) derogatory comments about Apple and its products on a “private” Facebook page outside of his working hours was not unfairly dismissed for gross misconduct. I would be interested to see the Judgment rather than just the brief summary in People Management Magazine (useful though that is) if anyone has it.
ACAS recently published a research paper on the use of social media in the workplace, called “Workplaces and Social Networking: The implications for Employment Relations“, as well as some very useful guidelines on how to draft a social media policy. It’s also about time that ACAS provided some guidance in what is becoming an increasingly difficult area.
Cyberslacking is the term given to people who spend their worktime surfing the
net, doing their shopping, checking football scores or booking a holiday. In fact, doing anything on the net that isn’t related to their jobs. Like you reading this now, probably.
Civil servants in Northern Ireland have allegedly been busy shopping, reading football stories and even planning holidays in the sun while they were supposed to be working.
[This is the follow up piece to my article "Social Media in the Workplace" published on this blog last Saturday and, originally, in The Internet Newsletter for Lawyers/Law 2.0]
In my last article I wrote about the potential threats that face employers from the use by employees of social media and recommended that businesses have a social media policy.
To recap, the main threats to an employer from misuse of social media are;
In the Middle East this year we have seen country after country rocked by revolution. The popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded, Libya remains in the balance and Bahrain and Syria may yet succumb. What does this have to do with social media for lawyers? Social media networks are credited with having fanned the flames lit by Mohamed Bouazizi, the fruit and vegetable seller in Tunisia who set fire to himself triggering everything that followed. The immense power of these networks as tools of communication is still not fully understood by most people and how they are used in the workplace is an issue that needs to be given careful consideration.
CTB has finally been named as the footballer taking on Twitter, following John Hemmings “outing” of him today in Parliament. You will already know the facts and history, so here are my thoughts on a case that clearly raises substantial issues affecting the issue of privacy, the constitutional settlement, the future shape of the media and, at its most extreme, the future of the nation state;
Employers often wonder what steps they can take to discipline an employee who misuses social media, especially where the employee claims that the employer was not identified. Liverpool ET dismissed a claim by a Bar Manager recently where her status updates on Facebook were used to dismiss her for gross misconduct.
In Preece v J D Wetherspoons PLC , the Claimant had had to eject two customers (“Brian” and “Sandra”) who were both, as it seems, elderly. They had been disruptive. A while later the Claimant received three abusive telephone calls from Brian and Sandra’s daughter in short succession.
If your employment has just ended, not just for redundancy but for any reason, did you sign a compromise agreement? Perhaps you entered into a COT3 via ACAS to settle the dispute?
If you did there’s a good chance you will have signed up to a clause that says;
“You shall not at any time after the termination of your employment represent yourself as being interested in or employed by or in any way connected with [name of ex-employer]”