Social networking and HR

Virgin Atlantic sacks 13 staff members for inappropriate Facebook comments - link.

Things are just going to keep getting trickier for HR. 

The Virgin Atlantic staff were probably out of bounds with their activity on Facebook; if there were truly safety and health concerns they should have taken them up with their management.  But the danger in this story getting so much play is the actions that some firms may take in response; bans of Facebook use, increased monitoring of employee internet use, and in general more suspicion of employees and less openness and trust.

Flickr - Torley - 'I'm going to tell you a secret'

I would argue that is the very last thing companies should do. Companies should be thinking about the issues in these terms:

1. Where are my employees congregating and conversing online?  Facebook, Twitter, somewhere else? And what kinds of things are they saying and who else is listening?

2. Should the company attempt to join or monitor the conversations on these external sites, or create and support an internal social network or collaboration environment? 

3. When comments or conversations take place among employees that are not exactly flattering to the company, what should the appropriate company reaction be?

These are difficult question for sure, especially for many HR organizations that may not be that well-versed in these technologies to begin with. For now, I would offer these simple recommendations:

1. Trust your employees to do the right thiing

2. Create an environment of openness where employees feel like there are meaningful internal mechanisms for complaints and honest feedback

3. Make sure that employees understand that you are not trying to control or monitor their private lives

So much of corporate communications and processes be it marketing, product development, customer support, etc. are gradually and inexorably moving to more 'open' platforms.  It is also inevitable and necessary that communications among employees and between employees and the company will become more 'open' as well.

The smart company will recognize, understand, and capitalize on this shift.

Comments

[Jason Averbook]

The question is:

Is this HR's job to monitor? Is it different from email?

Thoughts?

[Steve]

Jason,

Thanks for the comments, I actually do not think HR should be monitoring social sites like Facebook in 'enforcement' mode, but rather in 'engagement' mode. I think it is a valid role of HR to be in the lead in efforts to improve collaboration and idea exchange. It seems to me that much valuable energy and insight is getting missed by the enterprise, if the employees do have the tools or environment to harness that energy internally.

Steve