Karen and RacismA lawsuit stemming from a company’s termination over off-duty conduct that went viral on social media is a reminder of the need to properly handle disciplinary actions.

The lawsuit also reflects the increasing trend employers’ are forced to respond to – reacting to social media incidents of employee conduct outside the workplace. It also reflects

Social Media and Employment LawCompanies focus on maximizing social media strategies to promote the business. This week’s transition between the Obama and Trump administration highlighted numerous social media issues that employers need to pay close attention to concerning business and employee social media issues.

Social Media Use – Two Presidential Approaches

President Barack Obama was the first President to

Employee social media issues recently made headlines in the most deplorable way when an employee was fired on September 29, 2015, after he posted a picture of himself online with a colleague’s 3-year-old black son. The picture taken by Gerod Roth, the former employee, resulted (for reasons unknown) numerous bigoted and racists comments from the

Should Companies Monitor Their Employees’ Social Media?” This question was debated by the Wall Street Journal on 5/12/2014.

On one side of the debate was Ms. Nancy Flynn who took the position that companies absolutely must monitor their employees’ social media use, as well as use social media to screen job applicants. Or in her words:

Management has a right and responsibility to monitor how employees are using social media at all times … companies should ask for access to employees’ Facebook accounts and other private social media.

Mr. Lewis Maltby took the contrary view that monitoring employees’ social media use should be the exception. That exception being limited to when it is believed an employee engaged in misconduct and it should not be used to screen job applicants.

The fact is the vast majority of what employees do on the Internet has nothing to do with work, takes place during their private lives and is done on their personal computers … It’s simply too easy to turn social-media searches into fishing expeditions.

Continue Reading Monitoring Employees’ Private Social Media – Putting Together a Sensible Approach