Turning the tables on online tattle-tales
Could your workplace serve as a setting for a sitcom? Or maybe it’s more like a horror movie. The cast of characters that makeup your team may very well prove that fact is stranger than fiction, all that’s needed is a script.
HR be warned: there’s a wannabe writer out there somewhere who’s hoping to turn a short entry-level stint with your organization into a Hollywood career. And he wants to put your dirty laundry online.
Since its introduction to the workplace, the Internet has been both boon and bane for employers. While it has revolutionized communication and information sharing it has also created worries for HR departments that have had to create polices to deal with issues such as online gambling, pornography, privacy, illegal music downloading and employees unproductively surfing and e-mailing friends.
The latest annoyance is the blog. The new generation entering the workforce has taken to text messaging in a big way, and sharing thoughts and experiences online comes easily for many. Talking about their employers in online diaries is not only fun, it can be profitable too. In a few high profile cases, interns have turned their workplace blogs into books and movies.
Having a firm’s embarrassing moments posted online by an insider sends shivers down management’s spine. It just can’t be good for the corporate reputation, not to mention HR’s campaign to be an employer of choice. It’s time for another addition to the employee manual under “Internet policies” — “No tattle-taling online.”
The Internet has already seen websites that collect comments about employers from both past and present staff. But jobseekers aren’t likely to base decisions to join a firm on the postings of some disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind.
But blogging is a bit more problematic. Some workplace blogs represent nothing more than vicious attacks on the habits and appearance of co-workers. And the potential nuisance factor is high. Imagine dealing with an intern whose sole reason for joining your company is to write a movie script. Discipline and the employee manual aren’t going to matter much.
And even if you could get everyone on staff to refrain from bullying, harassing, having affairs and being generally incompetent — thus robbing bloggers of source material — they can just resort to making it up anyways.
No one wants their firm featured in the next Hollywood blockbuster or Oprah’s book club, but there’s little HR can do about it. By the time you discover and fire an offending blogger, the story is out there.
But the Internet can cut both ways.
Go ahead and Google a candidate — who knows what you’ll find. In addition to details on job applicants available from news items and police records, some people have gone a step further and catalogued their anti-social/illegal/immoral behaviour on personal websites. From living a secret life as a vampire to enjoying Celine Dion music, it’s all there for anyone with a search engine to read.
The Internet taketh and the Internet giveth.
HR be warned: there’s a wannabe writer out there somewhere who’s hoping to turn a short entry-level stint with your organization into a Hollywood career. And he wants to put your dirty laundry online.
Since its introduction to the workplace, the Internet has been both boon and bane for employers. While it has revolutionized communication and information sharing it has also created worries for HR departments that have had to create polices to deal with issues such as online gambling, pornography, privacy, illegal music downloading and employees unproductively surfing and e-mailing friends.
The latest annoyance is the blog. The new generation entering the workforce has taken to text messaging in a big way, and sharing thoughts and experiences online comes easily for many. Talking about their employers in online diaries is not only fun, it can be profitable too. In a few high profile cases, interns have turned their workplace blogs into books and movies.
Having a firm’s embarrassing moments posted online by an insider sends shivers down management’s spine. It just can’t be good for the corporate reputation, not to mention HR’s campaign to be an employer of choice. It’s time for another addition to the employee manual under “Internet policies” — “No tattle-taling online.”
The Internet has already seen websites that collect comments about employers from both past and present staff. But jobseekers aren’t likely to base decisions to join a firm on the postings of some disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind.
But blogging is a bit more problematic. Some workplace blogs represent nothing more than vicious attacks on the habits and appearance of co-workers. And the potential nuisance factor is high. Imagine dealing with an intern whose sole reason for joining your company is to write a movie script. Discipline and the employee manual aren’t going to matter much.
And even if you could get everyone on staff to refrain from bullying, harassing, having affairs and being generally incompetent — thus robbing bloggers of source material — they can just resort to making it up anyways.
No one wants their firm featured in the next Hollywood blockbuster or Oprah’s book club, but there’s little HR can do about it. By the time you discover and fire an offending blogger, the story is out there.
But the Internet can cut both ways.
Go ahead and Google a candidate — who knows what you’ll find. In addition to details on job applicants available from news items and police records, some people have gone a step further and catalogued their anti-social/illegal/immoral behaviour on personal websites. From living a secret life as a vampire to enjoying Celine Dion music, it’s all there for anyone with a search engine to read.
The Internet taketh and the Internet giveth.
