Social Networking Survey Results Released by One of Nation's Largest Employment Law Firms
Social networking sites became the latest workplace distraction in 2008...and also the latest hiring and discipline danger zones. In 2008, sessions on social networking and internet use in general were often the most crowded sites at human resources conferences, including the Society for Human Resources Professionals (SHRM) annual conference, and at attorney CLE seminars and employment law conferences.
Jackson Lewis LLP, one of the nation's largest management-side employment law firms, surveyed more than 100 employers in New York's metropolitan commuter areas to determine how on-line social networking sites have affected the employer-employee relationship. The survey, released in September [2008], found that many employers are monitoring employees' use of the Internet during work time and will terminate employees who violate workplace control and screening policies. Employers are also actively using social networking sites to screen new employees before hiring.
Employee Facebook time
Should employees be allowed to "poke" their friends in the office? Many employees use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to send cyber greetings to friends ( "poking," in Facebook parlance) during working hours. While many companies look the other way, a survey of 200 HR managers said nearly one in three employers consider visits to these sites to be a drag on productivity, and almost a quarter block access to these sites altogether.
Fifty-six percent of employers responding to the Jackson Lewis survey admitted to monitoring employees' internet use to determine whether they are accessing on-line social networking sites, among other potentially inappropriate things. Thirty-eight percent block employees from accessing such websites. And six percent of respondents have even terminated employees for utilizing on-line social networking sites during work time.
"Barring a policy to the contrary, it is the employers' prerogative to examine its employees' use of the internet during work time and to ensure that employees are working when they are being paid to do so," says Paul Siegel, a partner in the Long Island office of Jackson Lewis, LLP.
Less than one-third of employers responding to the survey indicated that they have adopted policies limiting or prohibiting use of such sites during work time. That figure is destined to change: Astute employers who understand the implications of this rapidly emerging technology in the workplace will increasingly implement formal policies articulating the permissible use of social networking both by the company and by its employees --on and off the job.
Two-faced employees
Potentially more troublesome than the drain on on-the-job productivity is the content of employees' online speech related to their employers. The Jackson Lewis survey found that 16 percent of respondents admit to checking on-line social networking sites to see what current and former employees might be saying about them on-line. And employers may often find that employees have loose lips in cyberspace--perhaps to the detriment of a company's reputation and intellectual property.
Recently, for example, thirteen members of the cabin crew at Virgin Atlantic airlines were fired after sharing all-too-candid impressions of their employer and its planes in a Facebook group, according to an industry publication. "There is a time and a place for Facebook," an airline spokesman said. "But there is no justification for it to be used as a sounding board for staff of any company to criticise the very passengers who ultimately pay their salaries."
Generally, notes Siegel, "taking adverse employment action against employees on the basis of their protected recreational activities outside of the workplace is unlawful", Siegel said. But social networking speech that is disloyal or defamatory may be just cause for discipline. Here's where employers must tread carefully, however: an employer that catches wind of a union organizing campaign via a Facebook page, for example, would be wise to resist the urge to take disciplinary action.
Employers come face-to-Facebook
Employers have begun to embrace these tools for their own business purposes as well, using corporate social networking to foster connections between employees, share information quickly across geographically diverse offices, and establish broad recruiting circles by keeping in touch with former employees. The technology is also helping organizations expand their talent management and mentorship programs by giving workers access to a large pool of executives and coworkers, rather than the one or two supervisors with whom they would otherwise interact.
"At the end of the day, social networks represent one of the most cost effective means of engaging in a two-way conversation with your employees," says Michael Wilson, CEO of Small World Labs. And the trend seems bound to expand: "Online social networks 10 years from now will be so ubiquitous that we will no longer be conscious of them," Wilson predicts.
The Jackson Lewis survey found that 12 percent of employers surveyed use on-line social networking sites to recruit new employees and an equal percentage admit to using on-line social networking sites to assess applicants before extending a job offer.
What dangers lurk from the use of such sites by Human Resources? Popping a job candidate's name into a search engine or checking him or her out on MySpace is simple enough and may generate some "interesting" information to facilitate hiring decisions. After all, if something is on the Internet, it's fair game, right?
Not so fast, cautions Lester S. Rosen, an attorney with Employment Screening Resources, speaking at the annual Society for Human Resources Management Conference in Chicago on June 23. While there aren't yet any legal cases on point, employers should note that such searches raise privacy concerns and may reveal information about protected characteristics such as race, religion, ethnicity and medical conditions. (Also worth considering: systematic use of such sites may muddy the waters of who is deemed a job applicant for affirmative action purposes.) Until this issue plays out in the courts, Rosen's advice is this: Only search the Internet and social networking sites with prior written consent and after a conditional job offer has been made.
Reprinted with permission. © CCH
(submitted Dec. 2008)
<p>Survey results, released in Sept. 2008, found that many employers are monitoring employees' use of the Internet during work time and will terminate employees who violate workplace control and screening policies. Employers are also actively using social networking sites to screen new employees before hiring.</p>
Social Networking Survey Results Released by One of Nation's Largest Employment Law Firms
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