I’ll take “blog post titles that I never thought I’d be using in 2022 ever” for $500. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Social Media and the Workplace
Read this before you go ham on employees who badmouth your company online.
I’m not sure if we are still in the middle of the “Great Resignation,” the “Great Renegotiation,” or something else entirely. I am sure, however, that I could go for a great piece of coconut cream pie right now.
Additionally, I know that among life’s certainties are death, taxes, and employees complaining about their jobs. And those complaints are usually filed on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Reddit.
I understand that your company may be inclined to take matters into its own hands when employees complain on social media about work by, err, “facilitating” their exit from the company. But before you hand out any pink slips, read this post. Continue reading
It’s 2022. Time for an employee handbook update. Start by adding the word “TikTok.”
A little over five years ago, TikTok, the social networking platform where users post videos ranging in length from 15 seconds to three minutes, was born. Now, I know that it’s hard to keep up with technology. But if your employee handbook doesn’t specifically reference TikTok — and I’m not just talking about your social media policy — then you, or your employees, or perhaps both, are looking for trouble.
Just ask a former flight attendant for a major airline. Continue reading
How much social media discovery can you get from an employee who sues you for discrimination?

Ibrahim.ID, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It depends. (Sorry).
But, for added context, I love this quote from a recent Maryland federal court opinion: Continue reading
Join me and special guest Dan Schwartz (!!!) at Noon ET today on Zoom for The Employer Handbook Office Hour

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
It’s week 98 of quarantine, many of you are working from home, and the boss isn’t around.
So, you’ve got really got no excuse to miss The Employer Handbook Office Hour today on Zoom at Noon ET, for which you can still register here before it fills up. Continue reading
A woman fired after attending the Capitol protest is suing her former employer for $10,000,000.

TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Did I mention yesterday that, among the many topics that Dan Schwartz and I will discuss at noon on Friday’s free Zoom chat, we’ll probably touch on employee free speech? (Click here to register.)
But this doozy can’t wait until Friday. Continue reading
An employee curses out a customer on Twitter. Was she fired? Heck no! The company had her back!

@MaidenSarah2 on Twitter
Often on this blog, I write about employees who lose their jobs for doing dumb stuff on social media — like the one-time Associate General Counsel and HR Director who live-streamed himself on Instagram from the Capitol riots. I’ve got slide decks full of this stuff from HR conferences I’ve presented over the years.
So, when I read that an employee of a grooming products company in England tweeted that a customer was a ‘t**t’ and a ‘f*****g w****r,’ my first impulse is to insert another PowerPoint slide.
Boy, was I wrong! Continue reading
A one-time Associate General Counsel and HR Director who was at the Capitol riots appears to be unemployed now.

Image Credit: @SollenbergerRC on Twitter
Remember that time in 2017 when a white nationalist march in Charlottesville turned deadly? Several participants ended up losing their jobs once exposed on social media.
Fast forward. Following Wednesday’s violent Capitol riots, a staff writer at Salon tweeted that the one-time Associate General Counsel and HR Director of a publicly-traded Texas-based insurance company, who apparently posted a video of himself on Instagram from outside the Capitol, no longer works there.
The most-read The Employer Handbook blog posts of 2020

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
For most, 2020 was a big dumpster fire.
Continue reading
A nurse, a TikTok video, and ignoring COVID-19 safety protocols. (This doesn’t end well…)

Image by Chrystal Elizabeth from Pixabay
Pretty much none of you who emailed me after yesterday’s post about state-mandated vaccines were too keen on that idea.
But, speaking of COVID-19 and safety precautions, let’s see what you think about today’s twist. Continue reading