Podcast: Social Media Madness for Employers

Author: David B. Weisenfeld, XpertHR Legal Editor

"The combination of employees and social media is toxic," says Richmond, VA employment law compliance expert Karen Michael who added: "There will always be stupid people doing stupid things."

Michael kept the audience engaged at her 7:00 a.m. presentation entitled, "Social Media Madness: The Top 10 Legal and Business Social Media Issues for Employers." Michael, a former McGuire Woods attorney who now runs her own training and consulting business, discussed hiring, firing and a host of social media situations in between that have bedeviled companies.

Discussing employer misconceptions, Michael said, "Employers are very confused about what you can look for online and what you can't, and whether you can terminate employees for their online usage."

She added that private employers with a nonunionized workforce often are unaware their employees could have protections under the National Labor Relations Act, and warned that the NLRB has been "extremely vigilant" in trying to protect employee rights involving social media.

Some other key points Michael made during her presentation include:

• As of May 6, 2012, only six percent of LinkedIn users were African-American. "If that's the only place we're looking, that's a significant talent pool we'll miss out on," she said.
• "Know what you're looking for ahead of time that would render someone 'unemployable.'"
• The first state to pass a law banning employers from demanding that job candidates provide their passwords to social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter was Maryland.
• It's important that an employer's policy be narrowly tailored.

Michael also cited several cases of employees making increasingly outrageous statements on social media sites (including a New York teacher who allegedly said she wished her students had drowned) in which courts refused to uphold their terminations.

But asked if employers are better served simply avoiding the use of social media in employment decisions, the Richmond attorney said, "Social media is here to stay." She also noted there are instances where employers must act in response to online postings, such as with harassment or threatened workplace violence.