Graduating college students are often warned that the content in their online profiles can hurt their chances of gaining employment. But as social media usage increases, so do the risks to employers, who are now seeing a rise in social media lawsuits.
Next week the National Labor Relations Board will hear the case of a transportation employee who alleges she was fired for criticizing her boss on Facebook. Though it is the agency’s first social media-related complaint, lawsuits are quickly cropping up across the country.
One such case follows the suit of several restaurant workers who were let go after managers viewed a private Myspace page the employees set up to talk about work. Technology giant Cisco Systems has faced two social media lawsuits since 2009. It settled both for an undisclosed sum, according to the Wall Street Journal.
An employer’s best defense against lawsuits is to have a social-media policy that lets employees know what is acceptable practice, and what isn’t. Fewer than half of U.S. companies have a social-media policy estimates Brian D. Hall, an employment-law partner at Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP in Columbus, Ohio, who was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
With the prevalence for these types of cases continuing to increase, many employers without a clearly defined social-media policy may want to consider those critical updates.
Source: The Wall Street Journal