EMPLOYER LEGAL ISSUES

Employer Legal Issues

Employer legal issues involving Facebook

Introduction

With the development of social networks, blogs and forums such as Facebook, twitter and myspace etc, the boundary between private life and professional life is becoming more and more difficult to control. The number of cases where employees post personal information on the web through facebook have a direct impact on the employer and it continues to increase day by day. It should be noted that the reputation on the internet has become a major issue for business companies, because the name of company often appears along with the employee's posts in search results.

Discussion

The use of social media at work has become a fact of life for employers. Many companies are even using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs and other tools for recruiting web client development, trademark and other purposes. Employees use the social media in both inside and outside the workplace. This is the double-edged sword for employers, however, promising business opportunities and risk. The first step in risk management is the adoption of appropriate policies for the use of media (Rudner, 2008).

As employers face the obvious challenges when employees use social media during the working hours, it can reduce productivity. Employers should not lose sight of the legal risks associated with web based applications. Consider, for example, an employee who discloses confidential or proprietary information about his employer in his or her blog, millions of readers can read it. What happens to the employee, when he or she is engaged in criminal conduct with with regard to the employer? Employees can even lead to their employers responsible for the promotion of business services or products, without disclosing the employment relationship. Employees can also damage the reputation of their employers who use social media to criticize the company or its clients. These are just some examples of how employees can accidentally or intentionally, at the risk of their employer through the use of social media such as facebook. Employers may also face legal problems to discipline employees for inappropriate use of social media. Is it permissible to employees who regularly condemn the head in Facebook? Or call the patient to work and then updated Facebook messages indicating that took the day off to go to the beach? Before the adverse action against an official in employment based on the use of social media, employers should consider whether the actions of individuals are protected by law or not.

Many countries have laws that protect legal workers out of the activities and political activities or affiliation (Franklin, 1999). And federal and state whistleblower protection for employees who complain (among other things) the possible violation of securities fraud, in some situations. With all these potential employee's dangers of social media, what employers can do to protect themselves? While not an absolute shield of legal risk, employers benefit from the adoption of social media, use policies that are consistent with its organizational culture and approach to social ...