Employee Privacy: Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and all the rest provide a tempting feast of personal information. These and similar venues are just the current locations and trust me, future locations are on the way. Consider the cloud.

Lately I've been seeing articles about the use of social media in the employment relationship, including pre-employment.

I am, of course, excluding from this discussion the use of social and electronic media by employees to willfully be inaccurately, illegally or even inappropriately critical of their employer.

What I am referring to is the private pages people create for their friends and families. I see articles cautioning people about social media content becoming known to their employers, current or prospective. I also see headlines about employers accessing private pages without the employee's permission or requiring passwords in order to check social media content.

I strongly champion the company's right to operate a business, but I still consider what I describe in the above paragraph as going too far. It is just plain wrong in my opinion.

If an employer feels justified in that kind of intrusion, they might just as well have a live webcam watching the employee or a little cam-drone following them around.

I don't think an employer has any right or reason invading an employee's off-work privacy.

Employers do have the right and responsibility to conduct thorough investigation and research of  candidates' work history and performance. Employers also have full authority to monitor and correct employees' work behavior and performance.

Lance