Articles Posted in Social Media and the Workplace

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The newest right-to-work state is also the latest to ban companies from accessing password-protected social media accounts.

On Friday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed House Bill 5523, prohibiting employers and educational institutions from asking applicants, employees and students for passwords and other account information used to access private internet and email accounts, including social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s the skinny.

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*Do I need a disclaimer? Do I?

What a year for The Employer Handbook in 2012! I’m most pleased that, in our second year of existence, readership more than doubled. Although, sadly, the one 2011 reader I had from Papua New Guinea never returned in 2012. I hope she is ok. Yeah, she’s ok.

So, what did my readers enjoy most in 2012? Well, apparently, y’all like Polka music. Why else would this be the most-clicked item on The Employer Handbook? What a strange cultured bunch!

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I did one of these posts a few weeks ago, where I wrote about employees getting sacked for a Facebook post and then offered you — the employment lawyers and HR pros — the opportunity to second-guess the termination decision.

Giving y’all the chance to weigh in nearly crashed my servers. So, let’s try it again with a new set of facts. But, be easy on my hardware.

Rhonda Lee is a meteorologist for KTBS-TV. Oh, did I say “is“? I meant “was“. She was fired based on two exchanges that occurred on the station’s Facebook page:

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Original Bad Santa kicks arse

With the National Hockey League season in jeopardy, I imagine that Canadians are a fairly ornery bunch these days.

Even further north, hockey fans too are in turmoil. Reports from the North Pole have Mrs. Claus moping around. Morale amongst Santa’s helpers is at an all-time low, causing toy production to drop 20%. And the elf of the shelf just flipped me the bird.

But it appears that no one is taking it harder than jolly old Saint Nick. 

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Yesterday, I spent a fun hour hanging out on Twitter with the folks from SHRM’s We Know Next discussing 2012’s HR victories and, then, what lies ahead for you good folks in 2013. 

A big thank you to SHRM and to those who were able to join us and participate. ICYMI, after the jump is a full recap of all the action along with the top song on the Billboard pop charts.

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Translation: Recent HR / employment law developments that Meyer missed a/k/a Meyer needs to clear out his folder of bookmarked employment-law items to make room for his dork dorkier Fantasy Baseball bookmarks. Pitchers and catchers report in just over two months.

  1. More courts weigh in on social-media discovery issues. “Good news. My doctor says that the itching and redness should subside in a few days.” Recent court decisions (here and here) roadmap how you can access this and other Facebook status updates from your former employee who is now suing you. Have fun with that.

  2. Other social-media-related litigation. A firefighter, allegedly terminated for critical Facebook comments, has settled his wrongful discharge claim (here). Facebook posts doom another employee’s FMLA claims (here). The National Labor Relations Board crapped all over another employer’s social-media policy (here). Choking back laughter (at least that’s how I envision it), a Massachusetts Court denied another (the first ever?) hair salon’s claim that a former stylist’s job posting on Facebook violated a non-solicitation agreement agreement (here).

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Do you call HR when someone says something you don’t like? What about if they confess a secret? What if you over hear something that wasn’t meant for your ears? 

And what should HR do about it?

Last night, labor-and-employment-law attorney Daniel Schwartz, who blogs at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog, Liz Ryan, founder and CEO of Human Workplace, and I joined The Huffington Post’s Nancy Redd on HuffPost Live answering these and other related HR/workplace questions. 

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Stamp Out Racism, August 2010To all the haters of social-media policies:

If nothing less, the social-media policy reminds employees that if they act the fool online, it may impact their standing in the workplace, and, ultimately, cost them their jobs.

Some employees, however, are just so ignorant. Thus, I doubt that any employer policy will impact how they behave online.

Two despicable examples from this past week follow after the jump…

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