Say What?: Trash Talk on Facebook
As an employer, a review means everything on the world wide web. So, what if an employee, yes, a current-comes-to-work-every-day-employee, decides to trash talk the company online? Even worse, on Facebook – the most widely used platform of social media today.
Many business owners would be quick to say, you’re fired! Think again. Recently there was a New York City catering service that had an employee trash his employer on Facebook. He was fired for the trash talk. The employee decided to then file an unfair labor practice with the National Labor Relations Board. Do you know what happened next? The employee won. Yes, he won!
How could that happen? Well, according to the National Labor Relations Board, the catering company had an environment that allowed trash talk in the workplace without any repercussions. The NLRB also stated that in the Facebook post, the employee never mentioned the name of the company. To put the icing on the cake, the company never had a policy in place regarding social media.
The handbook had not been updated in 10 years…10 years! Handbooks must be updated every three years unless a priority policy needs to be added.
Check your handbook, and as always, reach out to us and we can help!
Comments