Michael Specht

A blog from Australia looking at technology, enterprise 2.0, management, Human Resources (HR) and recruitment.

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More social media and workplace firings

April 19th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Branding, Digital Identity, HR Management, New Media, Social Networks · 2,506 views

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6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Karla Dixon // Apr 21, 2009 at 12:28 am

    You would think that employers would look at this the other way around. Finding the people that are willing to voice an opinion regarding their working environment could be infinitely more useful in improving that environment for others than traditional “suggestion boxes” or employee satisfaction surveys. If employers wanted to get a better ROI on the investment of people monitoring these types of communications, they could dedicate at least a part of those resources to turning the sentiments that they find around. The possibility that the “my job sucks” sentiment could be correct seems to have escaped them.

  • 2 Derek // Apr 23, 2009 at 4:41 am

    Great article! I didn’t realize how social mediums really shine the spotlight on everything you say if you’re not careful.

  • 3 Kevin Howard // Apr 23, 2009 at 9:52 am

    Karla, you may be making the assumption that all employers are interested in or value what their employees think. There are lots of “us and them” situations out there .

    But even if an employer is genuinely interested in hearing suggestions from their employees, I can’t imagine many employers would want the content of their suggestion box to be open to the public on a social networking site.

    Why should employers tolerate their employees writing critical posts on a blog or public facebook page? I’m sure employees wouldn’t like it if their employers criticized their performance on a social networking site.

  • 4 Tweet Nothings : Abhijit Bhaduri’s Official Website // Jun 14, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    [...] using the company’s network and laptop to generally vent to the world at large? Should the employer monitor such tweets or blog posts? There are firms who spy on employee behavior on Facebook and other [...]

  • 5 Jamin Gregor // Jan 29, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    What an absolutely ridiculous article. This has not ’set the scene’ for anything. A year later an workplace firings due to social media are minimal.
    Your foresight about companies providing social media monitoring (SR7) is clearly wrong. Ethics isnt even a consideration in what they do.
    You in fact are the scaremonger.

  • 6 Michael Specht // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:33 am

    Jamin, thanks for stopping by, seems I stirred you up a bit with the post.

    Agree we have seen less reports of firings however from my work with HR departments people are being let go due to their actions online. My comment on monitoring was that done incorrectly would be clearly unethical.

    Once again thanks.

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