How Not to Get Fired Using Social Media at Work - EEO, Diversity and Social Media

May Not Be
Social Media is the Social Equalizer
Philadelphia Federal Executive Board (FEB) EEO/Diversity Day

Andrew Krzmarzick
Director of Community Engagement, GovLoop

Our Time Together Today…

1. What is social media?
2. Who is using it?
3. What’s the impact on our workplaces?
4. How is it being addressed?

What do you do (in 7 words or less)?

1. In 7 words or less, explain what you do
(Don’t cheat: NOT your title!)
2. Discuss your response with 4-5 people near you

Don’t cheat:
NOT your title!
Discuss your response
with 4-5 people
near you

Caveat: My Experience…

Starship Captain Lawyer (Not!)

What is social media?

Photo credit: http://drivingtraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/socialmedia1.jpg

What is social media?
“media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication
techniques…web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into
interactive dialogue.”

“platforms that enable the interactive web by engaging users to participate in,
comment on and create content as means of communicating…”

“not about what each one of us does or says, but about what we do and say
together, worldwide, to communicate in all directions at any time…”

“a reflection of conversations happening every day, whether at the
supermarket, a bar, the train, the watercooler or the playground. It just
allows for those conversations to reach a broader audience…”

http://heidicohen.com/social-media-definition/

What is ?
Tools:
Online community of
• Blogs
government colleagues
• Forums
• Groups
that help each other
• Datasets to do their jobs better.
• Video / Photo Sharing
• Tools

Value: 50,000 Members
• Learn and share with peers • Federal, state and local employees
• Contractors, non-profits, academia
• Get questions answered quickly • International (Canada, UK, Australia, etc.)
• Solve problems faster
• Find and contribute best practices

Who uses social media?

AGE

Source: http://pewinternet.org/topics/Digital-Divide.aspx

AGE


Who uses social media more?

OR ?


Who uses social media more?

GENDER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR4LdnFGzPk


GENDER



54% of adults living with a disability
vs. …use the internet
81% of adults that report no disability


Who accesses more by phone?

OR OR ?


51% of Hispanics
vs.
46% of Blacks …use their phones
to access the internet
vs.
33% of Whites


36% of Hispanics
vs.
33% of Blacks …use their phones
to access social media
vs.
19% of Whites


Who uses ?

Source: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?id=8394258414&ref=mf&note_id=205925658858

Who uses ?


A greater percentage of whites
than blacks and Latinos still
have broadband access at home
…but
laptop ownership is now about even
for all these groups


“…mobile Internet access
may not be the great equalizer.
Aaron Smith, a Pew senior research specialist,
…so says there are obvious limitations on
what you can do on a mobile device —

updating a resume being the classic example.”


…or
maybe
it is! 78% attributed their job to
40% cited assistance from
42% cited

…and

http://adage.com/article/the-big-tent/digital-divide-segregation-alive-social-media/148596/

What’s the impact at work?
• Can a supervisor fire someone based on
Facebook?
• Can you turn down someone for a job based on
information you find on Google?
• Is it harmless to take a look and “snoop”?

What’s the Impact at Work?
• Form a small group with 4-5 people around you

• You will receive one of 4 scenarios

• Assign a spokesperson / note-taker

• Using the worksheet, take 10 minutes to address the scenario
assigned to your group

• Be ready to share with the large group

• We’ll address each scenario for 5-10 minutes

Scenario 1 – To Friend or Not To Friend?
When Eva hears the news she has earned a spot at the prestigious State
Department International Fellow program, she is ecstatic as she prepares
to leave Latvia and travel to the US for one year. Her fellow students in the
program are from all over the world and want to know all about her -
where she is from, what languages she speaks, what her hometown looks
like. “Are you on Facebook?” they ask.

After much convincing, Eva decides to join Facebook and begins accepting
friend requests from everyone in the program. Since DC has a great
nightlife, she starts posting lots of pictures from outings with her new
friends. One afternoon, she gets a friend request from her supervisor. This
supervisor was the one who originally accepted her application into the
program, and will be on the panel to decide if she will be placed
in a select group of students to intern with a US company
when the program ends.

Scenario 1 – To Friend or Not To Friend?
Questions:
• Should Eva accept the friend request from her
supervisor?
• How can Eva ensure that she doesn’t miss out on
valuable connections while maintaining a comfortable
level of privacy and maintain her reputation?
• Should a supervisor send a friend request to direct
reports?

Scenario 1: “To Friend or Not to Friend?”
• Recommendation: Create personal guidelines/policies on
sending and accepting invitations on social networks, and define
your objective for engagement on each platform first.
• A) Accept friend requests from all colleagues to gain better camaraderie
• B) Accept all friend requests, but create different levels of viewing access for
different groups of people.
• C) Keep Facebook strictly for family and friends, and politely send a message to
all who friend you, stating this is the protocol you follow - no feelings hurt.
•

• How to limit who sees what on your profile.
• Click on the top right of your FB page, and select Account >> Edit Friends.
• Select different people for different groups, and then set the different groups as
having different profile view rights.
• For more information - check out this Facebook help center resource.

Scenario 2: The Office Offense
Dan and Jeff are like oil and water in the office. Despite sharing a common
mission, they can't seem to get along. They're always taking not-so-subtle
digs at one another in meetings and small camps of sympathetic colleagues
have formed around each of them.

The problem: they are both excellent performers overall, meeting deadlines
and accomplishing team goals. However, things really seemed to have gone
too far when Dan found an unflattering personal photo of Jeff on Flickr,
posted it on his Facebook page and used it as his screen saver at the office.
Jeff spoke with Dan's supervisor and reported the incident to HR. Dan was
forced to take the image off his work computer but refused to remove it from
his Facebook page, stating that he could do what he wanted with his personal
account.

Scenario 2: The Office Offense
Questions:
• How would you handle this type of situation from the
perspective of Dan's supervisor?
• How about from the vantage point of HR?
• As a colleague?

Scenario 2: “Venting in the Wrong Venue”

Recommendation for the Supervisor:
• The behavior issues, including the Facebook photo, should be addressed as
performance elements and considered as part of Dan’s evaluation.
• Set a concrete date for removal of the photo.
• If the supervisor is responsible for both Jeff and Dan, s/he should sit them
down together and address the issues jointly
Recommendation for HR:
• Establish a clear policy for this type of scenario.
• Tie into existing policy that prohibits the posting of inappropriate photos or
images in the office place, or addresses the appropriate use of the Internet.
• Work with the supervisor and legal counsel to develop the most appropriate
course of action, then stand behind the supervisor in his/her decision.
Recommendation for Colleague:
• Encourage Dan to remove the photo from Facebook. Recommend that Jeff
check the Internet for other photos of himself that could be troublesome.

Scenario 3: Venting in the Wrong Venue
Karla is a Human Resources Specialist at an agency. After a
particularly difficult day, Karla is frustrated with a difficult
employee and makes the following comment on Twitter: “Ridiculous
how [name of agency] keeps incompetent people around. Time to
clean house!” There are rumors of a reduction in force coming on the
horizon, but nothing official has been announced. She makes the
comment after work hours from a home computer on her personal
Twitter account.

Questions
• Would / should Karla lose her job?
• What would be a fair policy in terms of how agency employees
should use social media during their personal time?
• What if colleagues join her in commenting about the work
situation and begin to organize to do something about it?

• Recommendation 1:
• An employee should be extremely careful in posting anything
about work, especially if it casts the agency, a colleague or a
customer in a negative light.

• Recommendation 2:
• A fair policy would seek to clarify the difference between
professional and personal use and connect online behavior to
current guidance on the appropriate conduct of an employee in a
public setting.

Scenario 4: Digging Up Dirt
Vanessa is a hiring manager for your agency. She has discovered that
Google, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all effective tools for rounding
out the qualifications and determining the cultural fit of potential candidates
for position vacancies. One candidate is highly qualified for an opening, but
Vanessa discovers in her web search that the individual belongs to a special
interest group with which she strongly disagrees. For that reason, Vanessa
does not forward the candidate's information to the supervisor for review
and consideration. Another member of the HR team learns about Vanessa's
decision and elevates the issue to the Office of the Chief Human Capital
Officer.

Questions
• What kind of policy would you develop to protect potential
candidates from experiencing this kind of discrimination?
• What if the person truly would not have been a solid culture fit (i.e.
could create significant tension among team members) based on
their affiliation?
• What if you learned that this happened to you in applying for a job?
How would you react?

Recommendation For You:*
• Remember that everything you place online may be subject to search.
• Conduct personal audits using various search tools...or have a Google Alert
set up to inform you in real-time what information is being indexed.
Recommendation For HR:
• You may discover information that you wouldn't be allowed to ask about in
a job interview
• Have someone other than the interviewers / selection committee conduct
this research to avoid those discoveries
• Keep detailed records of why you did or didn't hire everyone you
considered, so a complete and transparent paper trail will be on hand if
auditors come calling or a plaintiff's lawyer formally requests documents.
* Excerpts from:
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/02/checking-out-job-applicants-on-facebook-better-ask-a-lawyer/

http://mynlrb.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d458056e743

http://www.tlnt.com/2011/08/22/the-nlrbs-new-social-media-guide-what-employers-can-and-cant-do/

http://www.socialmedialawupdate.com/

You might be thinking, "what could possibly be
wrong with finding public information that the
job candidate has freely shared on the
Internet?" "Having shared that information, the
company should be able to ask him about it. After all,
the job applicant is not making a secret of it."

http://www.socialmedialawupdate.com/2011/10/articles/social-media/legal-issues-surrounding-social-media-background-checks/

Subjects that are considered off limits for employers to ask job applicants
about:
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in hiring,
discipline and termination decisions based on race, color, national origin,
religion and gender.
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) adds to the list with a
prohibition on discrimination against individuals who are 40 years or older.
• Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination against
"qualified disabled" individuals. Employment decisions are defined broadly and
include promotion, demotion, compensation, and transfers.
• Many states add additional areas that are off limits for making
employment decisions (i.e. California => sexual orientation, marital status,
pregnancy, cancer, political affiliation, genetic characteristics, and gender
identity.

“It is very easy to see how someone with a
Facebook page may post about these
protected factors.
The challenge for employers who are researching
job applicants, or monitoring the social media
activity of their employees, is not to let this
protected status information bleed into their
employment decisions.”


Some lessons to be learned from Gaskell vs. University of Kentucky:
(1) HR department training on interview skills and managing
employees should include the ways in which information taken from social
media and Internet searches can possibly give rise to allegations of
employment discrimination;
and
(1) Internet searches of job applicants or employees should be done
ideally by people who are removed from making employment
decisions so they can filter out information that are protected factors before
the search results are forwarded to the company employees who are giving
performance reviews or making recommendations on hiring, promotions, or
downsizing.


• Companies Should Have An Internal
Procedure For Researching Job Candidates And
Employees On The Internet
• The Business Practices Of Outside
Vendors That Provide Social Media
Background Checks Are Being Examined
For Compliance With Privacy And Intellectual Property
Laws


Policy Considerations (from Federal CIO Council)

• Goal: not to say “No” to social media websites
and block them completely, but to say “Yes,
following security guidance,” with effective and
appropriate information assurance security and privacy
controls.

• Focus on user behavior, both personal and
professional, and to address information confidentiality,
integrity, and availability when accessing data or
distributing government information.

Training Considerations (from Federal CIO Council)

• Provide periodic awareness and training of policy,
guidance, and best practices:
 what information to share, with whom they can share it, and
what not to share.
 mindful of blurring their personal and professional life - don’t
establish relationships with working groups or affiliations that may
reveal sensitive information about their job responsibilities.
 Operations Security (OPSEC) awareness and training to
educate users about the risks of information disclosure and various
attack mechanisms

Policy / Training

45 Policy Examples:
http://data.govloop.com/dataset/Web-2-0-Governance-
Policies-And-Best-Practices-Ref/b47r-pgph

Start or comment on
discussions in our
Forums
GovLoop.com/Forum

Join Groups
GovLoop.com/Groups

Andrew Krzmarzick

andrew@govloop.com

GovLoop.com/profile/AndrewKrzmarzick

202-352-1806

How Not to Get Fired Using Social Media at Work - EEO, Diversity and Social Media

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