Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2010, when dismissals over social media posts were described as “the first cases”. The practice, company policies and related case law have changed a lot since then.
We’ve talked several times about the advantages social networks offer for meeting people and finding a job. Of course, misusing social networks can also cost someone their job. I’m not just talking about using them during working hours. I mean that what we do outside working hours can have a negative effect on our image at the company.
The first cases of people being fired over text or images posted on social networks are already happening, so I imagine there will soon be controversy over privacy outside working hours.
Let’s take a specific case. Mr. “X” had a very eventful weekend in which alcohol played a big part, and he took some compromising photos showing off his more “alcoholic” side: a bottle of rum in his right hand, a joint in his left and his shirt unbuttoned. One photo upright, and another horizontal once he could no longer walk. Where’s the problem, if everyone is free to do as they please outside working hours?
Well, the problem, basically, is that Mr. “X” is a manager at a company, with more than 90 people under him and a client portfolio through which he handles more than 3 million euros a month. So the company has decided that the images posted on Facebook, where he has more than 1,500 “friends”, including some clients, are not appropriate.
Another case is that of Mr. “Y”, who was on sick leave for five days with gastroenteritis, a very common and perfectly respectable illness. So far so good, but Mr. “Y” forgot that his camera records the date and time each photo is taken. His boss, who studied business and is good with numbers, could clearly see that the dates on the photos matched the days of his sick leave. Mr. “Y”‘s boss knows perfectly well that doctors don’t recommend drinking and staying out until the early hours while you have gastroenteritis, much less when they’ve signed you off work.
As social networks become ever more widely used, these cases will become more common. Honestly, I don’t know to what extent a person can or can’t have certain habits outside working hours, but we should bear in mind that in a company we are not a job title or a number. We are people, and as people our image counts, and I believe what is said about us matters for our corporate image.
So think twice about which photos you upload, and above all, think twice before adding your boss as a “friend”.
Remember that nowadays many companies look into our image on social networks before hiring us, because anything we can hide in a job interview may come to light on our social media profiles.
Further reading
Featured image: Boaventuravinicius, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
