Is your employee’s Facebook account really any of your business?
Currently, almost all of us have some kind of online presence, and this means that there is a huge amount of information available out there that people wouldn’t have been able to see in the past. Currently, just over half of all employers take the time to check the profiles of people who they are thinking about hiring, and this means that anything that is posted on there could be a deal breaker.
In many ways, it is clear to see why companies would choose to do this. Nobody will want to hire somebody who is going to be a bad reflection on the company, and this includes people who either take part in illegal activity, or constantly post offensive things online. However, many professionals believe that checking up on profiles in this way shouldn’t be done, and it could actually cause more harm to the company than good in the long term – not to mention the fact that anything truly serious that an employee has done is unlikely to be talked about on social media anyway.
Young people know how to hide
The younger generation have grown up very much in an age where everything occurs online, and because of this they also know how to hide things that they don’t want people to see. Privacy settings can be applied on social media, which means that profiles can be private and posts can be hidden. They may even choose to have a fake profile with their real name, and a false profile with a slightly altered name so that people can’t find them – and this means that they could well be posting plenty of things that the company wouldn’t be happy about, but they just aren’t able to find it.
There may be bias in the workplace
If an individual is seen to be raising money for a charity close to the heart of their boss, they may be viewed in a more favourable light than someone who constantly posts support for a political party that is against what the boss believes – despite the fact that neither have any impact on the ability of the employee to perform at work. There are lots of things that can cause this type of bias, even if a company doesn’t mean to behave in that way.
Although there should almost certainly be guidelines put in place about what should be shared on social media – for example no photographs in work uniform, or no public discussion about the way that the company is run – it seems somewhat unrealistic to be able to police every single thing that people choose to post online. It is more likely that individuals will be happy working for a company that allows them to express themselves, rather than trying to police everything that happens online. With the growth of social media and related outlets only set to continue, it is important that companies work out their strategy, and stick to it.