Being Facebook Friends with Employees/Coworkers
Do you have a Facebook policy? Does it regulate if managers can be "friends" with the employees they supervise? I think the general consensus (except from the attorneys thinking strictly of employment law and liability) is that you let employees know they should adhere to the same standards on FB as they do in the office, etc.
Earlier this week, I posted about this topic on the Technology for HR blog (to see the post, [URL="http://hrhero.com/techforhr/2010/09/hr-challenge-youve-got-a-friend-but-is-that-a-good-thing/"]click here[/URL]). Frank chimed in with a scenario I hadn't even thought of -- what do you do when one of your FB "friends" leaves the organization?
I'm FB friends with people I have worked with at other companies and that used to work here at M. Lee Smith and have never run into any problems.
Any of you have FB work-related horror stories?
Earlier this week, I posted about this topic on the Technology for HR blog (to see the post, [URL="http://hrhero.com/techforhr/2010/09/hr-challenge-youve-got-a-friend-but-is-that-a-good-thing/"]click here[/URL]). Frank chimed in with a scenario I hadn't even thought of -- what do you do when one of your FB "friends" leaves the organization?
I'm FB friends with people I have worked with at other companies and that used to work here at M. Lee Smith and have never run into any problems.
Any of you have FB work-related horror stories?
Comments
Sometimes an applicant will add me and that can be a little awkward when they are not hired. I just figure they will delete or "hide" me if they no longer want to see my posts, status updates, etc.
I don't post personal stuff on my HR persona. I keep it more professional (well, professional for me anyways).
Frankly I am suprised at how many of our staff want to be my facebook friend. Hopefully that means that they have a positive view of me and welcome my presence in their "online" life.
I have noticed that former staff tease me more than current staf... cheeky monkeys!
I think it's difficult when you're in HR to "Friend" people online (or in the office, for that matter). Because of this, I do occasionally accept friend requests, but only from managers or people on my team, and I have a privacy setting specifically for coworkers which shows very little information, and only specific photo albums. It was a little work to get together, but in the end, I feel like I can participate without having to worry.
I have only had one awkward situation with it so far. A new employee friended me, and since she was already friends with several other employees I agreed. She then sent friend requests to every friend I have to help her play the games. I didn't like it. I would have helped her out my connecting her to people I knew played games, but I didn't appreciate her contacting people that I knew would not like it. After debating the issue for a few days I finally talked to her about it. She apologized. Hopefully she will think before she acts that way again. (Sometimes we don't realize we are being rude until someone points it out.)
All in all I would have preferred NOT to go there. It was a learning experience for both of us.
Ah, yes, that silly farm game....another reason I don't do Facebook.
If you don't want to play games you don't have to. You can set your fb account up not to get any, or to exclude specific ones. I have many family and friends who do just that. I love fb and check the update feed every day. It's a great way to keep in touch.
Even though my life is very fulfilling, busy, and happy, I just think it would be a bit of vanity to assume that there were very many people out there who would find it fascinating enough to follow on a social networking site. I am also a big fan of more personal communication than putting things out on a site where 850 of your very bestest "friends" can see it, but personal communication seems to be something of a thing of the past. I am close to my DIL and she spends a lot of time on Facebook, so she ends up passing on most of the important things going on with me to everybody on there, so if I were on there it would be kind of redundant.
And yes, I know if you don't want to play the games on Facebook, you don't have to....I was just being a smart-aleck when I made that comment.
In any case, I do play some games when I am watching tv. Otherwise, I check in once (sometimes twice) a day to see what everyone is up to and to check out any new pictures. Sometimes people do post silly things, but mostly it helps me keep in touch. Alot of my 'friends' are neices and nephews on my hubby's side. He never seems to talk to anyone much but his mom, and her not that often. So fb is a blessing to me in many ways.
That said, its wonderful for posting photos/videos and staying up to date on the generally trivial but interesting tidbits of our lives.
I dont play any games. I tried Farmville but I found it stressful.
[URL]http://articles.cnn.com/2009-05-07/living/wlb.social.networking_1_social-networking-sites-friend-requests-facebook?_s=PM:LIVING[/URL]
The article also touches on how blurry the line between work and social time has become.
I get several requests from staff or ex-staff to be friends with me on my personal page (that bears my name) and I just email them and tell them I will add them to my HR mgr page.
A school board in Connecticut has agreed to a settlement where a newly hired superintendent resigns but get his $150,000 salary and benefits for six months or until he finds a new job, whichever is sooner. The first day of his contract was July 1, and schools were closed. He posted on his Facebook page that he had spent the morning sleeping in and playing on the Internet and "If every day is like this, it'll be the best job ever![U][/U]"
A friend responded that he shouldn't get used to it, and he came back with "I noticed that… my first day on-site involved counseling an administrator to retire or face termination.
And that was the post that sunk his battleship (you can read the whole article at [URL]http://bit.ly/a8wl9p[/URL]).
Obviously, that wasn't the smartest thing to post (especially using a
But is it an offense worth termination? Do you think if he'd been doing the job well for 10 years the board still would have pushed him out (versus an unproven guy starting off on the wrong foot)?
I think that lack of tact alarms employers. They see or hear of something an employee says in an open forum and can't help but wonder if that employee is careless enough to blurt out something offensive or confidential in other settings.
I'm not sure that I would have taken the same steps as the employer in the article, but I would have thought long and hard before letting the employee slide.
Just my two cents.
Sharon
I thought 'freedom of speech' really applied to government employees, at least as far as employment goes.
I think it is common practice for employers to have a policy where the employee cannot publicly make the employer look bad (embarrass it). It is interesting that some companies are starting to specifically designate social networking sites in that policy.