Employers Look At Facebook Too

Last week I mentioned the press coverage of the TUC’s report about employees’ use of social networking internet sites at work. This week I will look in more detail at social networking sites.

Are the messages and profiles that you create private or should employers be able to rely upon the information that they find online when deciding whether to recruit? The TUC report suggests that vetting candidates for recruitment through sites such as facebook and myspace is not acceptable. I agree with this. As well as being a potential violation of the candidate’s private life, employers will face increased risks of discrimination claims if the candidate can prove that some personal information was taken into account when it shouldn’t have been.

Employers these days should keep personal information such as religion, sexual orientation and even age out of the recruitment process. As soon as they start reading candidate’s personal profiles employers are at risk of gaining information that the candidate may not wish to disclose. This is information that should not be taken into account when making decisions on recruitment.

However, when it comes to employees writing offensive comments about colleagues or employers, I come down on the side of the employer. Whilst employees do have a right to privacy, the world wide web is a public domain and if you allow the information that you post to be accessed publicly you will have to deal with the consequences.

Take for example Tom Beech who worked at Argos and who was sacked earlier this year when managers saw a thread that he had set up after a particularly bad day. The title of the thread had too many choice words to mention here but let’s just say that it was less than complimentary about the employer. The dismissal was on the grounds of gross misconduct which would in my view be held to be a fair decision.

Over-use of sites like facebook during working hours has also been the cause of a growing number of dismissals. Employers are entitled to monitor internet usage and regularly accessing social networking sites whilst at work is unlikely to ever be acceptable. Many employers have blocked access to such sites altogether to prevent the problem arising.

The lesson for employees is to think about whether what you are posting is appropriate and who will be able to access it. Even if your comments are made in jest, if your boss will take it the wrong way be careful what you say publicly online.

Employers need to consider whether internet policies are up to date and be clear what the policy on social networking is. When it comes to recruitment, ‘googling’ candidates’ names for information is not a great idea and leaves employers open to possible discrimination challenges. On the other hand, candidates may wish to search and see what information the world can access about them before applying for jobs so that those messages about hating your current job can be removed before recruiters get the wrong impression.