Analysis: Employee activities on social media create job risk

It seems harmless enough on the surface. The whole idea of social media is one that has a relaxed tone. Meet people based on a name and personal profile, which might not be factual, from anywhere around the world. Form friendships, although the very nature of the medium used limits any relationship to be superficial at best. And develop networks that could lead to any number of opportunities including job placement or career advancement.

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and literally a world of special interest websites and chat rooms offer a multitude of promises. These sites can be great tools for research and information. They also provide an opportunity for many people to lose any level of common sense or professional decorum when it comes to what they choose to post online.

Do not think that negative indiscretions are limited to high school students who send compromising photos of themselves to their classmates over cell phones.

People already in the workforce have practiced significant mismanagement of individual indignities. Those same people might be surprised who is watching.

A business acquaintance, located in a state far away from Louisiana, relayed a story of how he had participated in a special interest chat group before the introduction of Facebook or Twitter. In the course of his networking, he started talking, by way chat room, with a female participant. He was at a loss of what to do one day when his new friend sent him a photo of herself, nude. It was not the image that bothered him so much as it was discovering that this person he had been chatting with under an assumed identity was in fact one of his young employees.

A University of California Los Angeles study revealed that among the high-tech generation, those that do not remember life without personal computers or cell phones, the most important thing to them was not career advancement, money or even working for world peace and a sense of community. It was to be famous. How that fame or attention was gained was not an issue. With the arrival of social media sending a video or posting a photo of oneself for public display has become easy and can grab the attention of millions of people.

Tom Henderson of ParentDish.com reports that the UCLA study, which tracked the changing of public mores based on popular trends from 1967 through 2007, revealed that as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter exploded on the cultural stage there was a “rise in narcissism and drop in empathy” among college age students. Those values, in many cases, have carried over to the workplace.

Sometimes it is not just the image of oneself pictured in a drunken stupor at a college reunion party or on vacation that can send the wrong message to an employer or client who might be looking at an online profile. On occasion, what others place on one’s personal web page might prove equally as harmful if they project a negative image, leaving one guilty by association.

“You don’t have control of what people can post on what they call your [Facebook] wall,” Louisiana Workforce Commission Business Services Representative Cheri Blanchard said. “So if you are in an intense job search I would advise those people to disable their wall.”

Blanchard said many times employers get an idea regarding perspective or even current employee based on photos, blogs or posted comments not because of any vicious intent, but because what might seem funny between friends could be offensive to others looking at what one posted publically.

“You see [less discretion with what people post] among lower level administrative type job seekers than you do with someone that is an attorney,” Blanchard said using two examples.

Blanchard also warned that what is put on the Internet by young people, who might think it’s funny at the time, can come back to haunt them years later and work against them in the world of employment. “If somebody did a search or a little digging they can still find them,” she said.

“People are using social media like Facebook to promote themselves,” TalentSmart employment training spokeswoman Shannon Shinn said. “They are using [social media] with their work and looking for jobs. You want to be careful with what you are posting and saying and how you want your digital online image to represent who you are offline.”

Blanchard said she does not know why it seems so prevalent for people to post suggestive material and profanity with their names and image associated with it. “It is not because I get offended personally with that kind of stuff,” she said. “It just makes you look like an idiot. You don’t know who you are going to be interviewing with [that might see those posts] or what kind of company you are going to run into.”

One observation made by an office administrator is that some employees will use social network sites to complain about employers, co-workers, clients and customers by name, not considering or caring about the consequences that might await them.

Some Internet-focused firms have emerged that will intentionally seek out unfavorable information on employees or job seekers of client companies and will report the activities of individuals and their online postings.

Social Intelligence Corp. (socialintelligencehr.com) is identified on its own website as a company that “generates reports based on employer pre-defined criteria, both positive and negative.” Telephone calls to top personnel at Social Intelligence Corp. were not returned.

Critics of this kind of service contend it is an unfair spy operation used to pry into the personal lives of employees and job seekers with the intention of causing embarrassment.

On the other side of the issue, there are those that contend that such a service can be a valuable tool to seek out the most qualified individuals for a job and eliminate association with those persons that could become a corporate embarrassment.

Data found on the Social Intelligence Corp. website reveals that 64 percent of employees use the Internet for matters of personal interest while on the job. Approximately 70 percent of Internet porn traffic takes place between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Up to 40 percent of lost productivity is attributed to cyber-slacking. And 90 percent of employees said the Internet could be addictive.

While some Internet users suggest that what they post should be considered private, others insist that once something is placed in public view it is the same as a person standing on a busy street corner and shouting for attention.

Most people in today’s workforce have become accustomed to the prevalence of background checks and drug tests performed on perspective and even existing employees. Some observers warn that checks regarding what workers post on the Internet could become the next common practice.

While no credible, detailed research into improper use of social media among employees could be found, the personal stories of workplace problems arising out of poor judgment on the part of workers seem numerous.

A concrete cause for the anything goes mentality on social media trend seems as uncertain as any ideas on how to properly deal with the situation. However, those business professionals questioned for input all confirmed that the results of inappropriate postings could be harmful to one’s career objectives.

“Everything is a tool,” Blanchard said. “It is a matter of how you use it.” Especially when it seems so harmless.

RedFish Pizza owner Stephen Lee uses computer technology for business, but does not frequent social media sites. MIKE NIXON