Articles Posted in Social Media and the Workplace

Work with me here folks:

Late last month, I had intended to blog about this Idaho case, in which a nurse was denied unemployment compensation benefits because of a threatening Facebook post. But, Molly DiBianca at the Delaware Employment Law Blog beat me to it. You can check out her post here.

Speaking of Idaho, that’s right next to Montana, where you’ll find the City of Bozeman. Ah yes, the City of Bozeman, the poster child for why states have enacted laws protecting employees from having to disclose social media logins and passwords. And the latest state to do so is Rhode Island. You — yeah, you there in Providence — can view a copy of the new law here.

A few weeks, ago I was speaking about social media and the workplace to a fabulous audience at the 2014 SHRM Annual Conference and Expo. (Email me if you want a copy of my slidedeck).

One of my session themes was that there is no such thing as employees using social media “off the clock.” That is, even if an individual tweets or updates her Facebook status outside of the four walls of the workplace, that communication can still impact the workplace.

Dan Davis at IBM Social Business recently blogged about this, and another Twitter user described it as the “24/7 social media conundrum” Two recent incidents described below bear this out.

And most of them revolve around technology.

According to a CareerBuilder survey, here are the top ten:

Meet Delaware lawyer, Brian Zulberti.

According to his website, back in 2013, after getting his DE bar license, Mr. Zulberti emailed every Delaware lawyer asking for information about job openings. In each email, he included this photo of himself in a sleeveless t-shirt.

Mr. Zulberti claims that this mass email, coupled with a subsequent story written in Above The Law, made him a “global internet sensation.”

Within the past week, two states have passed laws, which will provide employees with more workplace protections.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure that the internet had yet arrived in either Oklahoma or Louisiana, the latter of which is still controlled by a French monarch, I’m fairly certain.

(But since Louisiana also has beignets and Mardi Gras, all is forgiven).