Articles Posted in Social Media and the Workplace

The recent uptick in activity on my “fired AND Facebook” Google Alert suggests that individuals with jobs continue to struggle with social media (Exhibit A, B). However, according to a recent survey from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 65% of surveyed employers found their new hires through social media this past year. LinkedIn was the most popular social networking platform for sourcing job candidates. Indeed, 87% of HR professionals said it was either “very or somewhat important for job seekers to be on LinkedIn.”

But, wait, there’s more…

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For blog fodder, but, mostly for my amusement, I have a Google Alert for “fired AND facebook OR twitter.” Usually, it’s just a hit or two. But, yesterday, I hit the jackpot. Continue reading

Forcing job applicants to disclose social media logins and passwords as a condition of employment is so 2013 — kinda like this crappy blog. So, the State of Oregon is this close to becoming the first state to expand its social media workplace privacy law to forbid employers from requiring their employees or job applicants to have personal social media accounts as a condition of employment.

You can read a copy of the bill here.

So far, the bill has made it through both the House and Senate without a single “nay.” And, Mark Zuckerberg plans to buy Oregon, rename it “Gotcha, Zucka!” and secede from the Union the Governor plans to sign the bill. The new law would only impact social media accounts used exclusively for personal purposes unrelated to any business purpose of the employer or prospective employer and that is not provided by or paid for by the employer or prospective employer.

I understand the good intentions of the bill. Work is work; personal is personal and worlds don’t have to collide. But, consider two points: Continue reading

It’s funny.

(Not “ha ha!” funny. Just, employment-law blogger, wry-smile funny).

I read different surveys about social media and hiring and the numbers vary greatly. For every survey that indicates that employers are not using social media to vet candidates, you get the one I read last night from CareerBuilder.com, which reports that “fifty-two percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, up significantly from 43 percent last year and 39 percent in 2013.” Continue reading

Raise your hand if you don’t own a smartphone.

According to this Pew survey, 64% of American adults own smartphones. And that’s just the adults.

So, it should come as no surprise that, in the brief amount of time it takes someone to pull a phone of a pocket, bring it to life, pull up a camera app, and hit record — five seconds maybe — anything you (or your employees) do in public can be stored and shared. Continue reading

Over the weekend, while enjoying my tea and krumpets twenty minutes alone in the bathroom free from four screaming kids, I read this story in U.K.’s Daily Mail about a Facebook post from a fast-food chain employee. Shortly after news hit about two police officers gettign shot and killed, she wrote: ‘2 police officers was [sic] shot in hattiesburg [sic] tonight.! [sic].’ The same post include a few emoji (among them, a smiley face and a skull), followed by ‘GOT EM’ and a gun pointed at the words. In a subsequent Facebook post, the employee added, “we can turn this bxtch [sic] into Baltimore real quick.’ Continue reading