A recent survey conducted by Harvard Business Review found that instances of employers’ reputations being damaged as a result of employees’ misuse of social media affected approximately 50 percent of the world’s most-admired companies. Other surveys have found significant damage to organizations’ brands due to social media activities of its employees. Examples include a YouTube video (with more than one million views in three days before it was taken down) of employees preparing food in a very unsanitary manner and former Kansas City Chiefs’ running back Larry Johnson being suspended for making antigay tweets. Read on to see (1) what you can do to minimize the risk of your employees damaging your organization by their misuse of social media, (2) how one size does not fit all when it comes to drafting social media policies, and (3) why training is important.
The number of problem areas is large, and a complete discussion of them is beyond the scope of this article. However, this article touches on four of the key social media issues: (1) National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) restrictions on disciplinary action based on employee social media posting, (2) hiring issues related to social media searches of applicants, (3) trade secret and noncompetition issues, and (4) general damage to an organization’s brand through abuse of social media by employees, many of whom haven’t been properly trained on social media issues.
NLRB restrictions
Although there has been only one trial so far, in a series of advice memos from the NLRB’s office of general counsel, the Board has made clear in more than a dozen cases that (1) overly broad social media policies that interfere with employees’ exercise of their rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) are unlawful and (2) disciplining an employee for engaging in what amounts to protected concerted activity under the Act can result in the NLRB filing an unfair labor practice charge against the employer and the terminated employee being reinstated with full back pay.
In one case involving an ambulance company, the NLRB filed a charge because an employee was fired after the employer discovered she had made Facebook posts in which she referred to her supervisor as a “dick” and “scumbag as usual,” adding “love how the company allows a 17 [company lingo for a psychiatric patient] to become a supervisor.” Coworkers had made sympathetic posts that helped the NLRB reach the conclusion that the disgruntled employee had engaged in protected concerted activity. Result: The employer settled the case.
Read more... Missouri Employment Law Letter (PDF)