You Manage It! 4: Technology/Social Media You’re Fired!
On The Apprentice television show, Donald Trump has made the statement “You’re fired!” part of the entertainment. The reality in the workplace, however, is that having to let someone go is not easy and far from entertaining. Nonetheless, it is sometimes necessary. The use of social media has dramatically increased, and it has increasingly become a basis for employee terminations.
The use of social media isn’t, of course, illegal. People have, nevertheless, gotten themselves into trouble at work with the use of social media. Common issues that can lead to termination include the sharing of inappropriate material and the inappropriate use of company equipment. Consider the following scenarios:
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▪ George has been a valuable employee and Lori has been working hard to make sure he stays with the company. One of her fellow managers just informed Lori that he entered George’s office and found him watching a revealing video. George apologized to the manager, quickly shut it off, and explained that it was a personal video sent to him by a friend. The manager described the video to Lori as being pornographic. The manager told Lori that something had to be done, and that type of behavior didn’t fit with the company culture and couldn’t be tolerated.
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▪ Don is a supervisor and had two of his workers in his office. He had called them into his office to ask if the story he had heard was true. What Don had heard was that one of the workers had taken a picture of a female colleague when she was bent over a piece of equipment. The photo revealed the female worker’s underwear. The two workers had apparently distributed the photo by posting it on their Facebook pages and sending links to other workers.
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▪ A manager was at a company party and left his phone on a table while he left to use the restroom. Some of his workers at the party thought it would be funny to use his phone to post some critical comments about the company. Unfortunately, the manager had not exited from a social media page. At the time, the workers thought it was a hilarious prank, but upper management didn’t see the humor in it.
The preceding types of incidents have led to people losing their jobs.
Critical Thinking Questions
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6-33. Do you think terminations for the types of incidents presented here are fair? Why or why not?
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6-34. Assume that the employees or managers in each of the scenarios perform at an above-average level. Should that matter in the decision to terminate or not terminate? Why or why not?
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6-35. How could these social media–driven issues be prevented? Are there steps that you, as a manager, could take that would prevent these issues from happening in the first place?
Team Exercise
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6-36. Many private companies do not have a policy regarding the use of social media. As a team, identify why a social media policy would be useful.
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b. Draft an ideal social media policy. What are its key characteristics? For example, would your policy ban any use of social media during working hours? How would inappropriate postings be treated? Share your policy and why it would be useful with the rest of the class.
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Experiential Exercise: Team
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6-37. Telling someone that they are being terminated can be a difficult and emotionally draining task. Using any of the scenarios presented in this case, or other relevant scenarios of your choosing, role-play terminating someone for inappropriate use of social media. One member of your team should take on the role of manager and another member takes on the role of the employee being terminated. Other team members should observe the interaction and provide feedback to the person playing manager about how the interaction went and how it might be improved.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
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6-38. Many companies do not have a policy regarding the use of social media. Identify why such a policy would be useful if an employee disputed a social media–based termination. Conducting an Internet search, can you locate social media policies used by companies? Are there common features of these policies? As a manager, which parts of such policies would you find most useful?