You may have seen the article on Stuff.co.nz about the hotel employee who was dismissed for making disparaging comments on Facebook about a blogger; how would you handle something like this, do you have a policy about what staff (and volunteers) can say and do with their personal time, their person social media posts?
Have a read of the article, then have a think about how you would handle such a situation.
Hotel worker sacked over abusive Facebook post to columnist
A Sydney hotel supervisor has lost his job after making a sexist and offensive comment on the Facebook page of Fairfax Media columnist Clementine Ford.
The Meriton Group confirmed that Michael Nolan was no longer employed by the company, after he labelled Ford a “slut” when she spoke out publicly against misogyny and online harassment.
Ford, a weekly columnist for Daily Life, made a number of posts on her Facebook page on White Ribbon Day, which aims to prevent men’s violence against women, in which she highlighted recent examples of online harassment she had received.
Ford included screenshots of a number of abusive messages that had been sent to her, including images Ford said were a “little violent in theme”, and included unsolicited images of male genitalia.
Continue reading the full article here
There are organisations that have internal social media policies, these generally state that an employee/volunteer won’t say or do anything that will bring the organisation into disrepute. They often will also point out the consequences should someone say or do something that could tarnish the reputation of the organisation.
But, is this acceptable, can an organisation state what an employee can or can’t do in their own time?
What’s your take?
Note: I don’t condone bullying, trolling or any such behaviour, so I am not defending the guys actions, merely raising a point of discussion.
charitymattersnz.com 