In yesterday’s Advisor attorney Elijah Yip covered the first two S’s of social media management, Search and Speech; today, Surveillance and Secrets, plus we announce a timely webinar that will show you how to maximize the effectiveness of your job descriptions.
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Yip, who is a litigation partner at the Honolulu office of law firm Cades Schutte LLP, offered his four S’s at the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium held recently in Las Vegas.
[Go here for S’s 1 and 2]
S #3. Surveillance or “Snooping”
What’s the Risk?
When you monitor employee’s social media activity, you run two risks, says Yip:
- Damage to morale. The company may call it surveillance, but the employees will view it as snooping, and they won’t like it. The vast majority of employees aren’t doing anything wrong (and your best employees are probably in this group) but they will feel that the company doesn’t trust them.
- Exposure to legal liability:
- Discrimination claims. As with searches, monitoring will likely turn up information that you wish you didn’t have.
- Violation of antihacking laws, for example, under the Stored Communications Act. This is an archaic act—passed before the Internet became a major factor in communications—says Yip, yet it is cited in about 25 percent of cases.
- Privacy claims. These claims are primarily brought under state law.
Risk Management Tips:
- Set written policies. Consider how employees use social media and the Internet in their daily work, what types of sites they need to visit, etc.
- Inform workers about your monitoring.
- Obtain consent from workers.
- Filter or block certain Internet content.
- Stay within legal limits of what information employers can and cannot access.
- Currently, no specific laws govern monitoring of employee’s social media activity on company equipment.
- Stored Communications Act (mentioned above).
- Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which governs the unauthorized access to others’ computers).
Job descriptions getting moldy? Join us March 25 2014 for an interactive webcast, Job Descriptions with Value: Strategies, Tools, and Technology to Optimize Job Description Content. Learn More
S #4. Secrets
What’s the Risk?
- Proprietary information falling into the wrong hands., for example, a customer list, new product plans, or a secret formula.
- Loss of protection under trade secret laws. Publication of a trade secret may destroy its status as a trade secret, says Yip.
- Loss of social media assets. When people leave the company, who owns their social media presence? For example, who owns their 27,000 Twitter followers?
Risk Management Tips:
- Define “trade secret.” Yip recommends using this language from the Economic Espionage Act:
“Trade secret” includes: all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing.
- Enter into written agreements with employees regarding trade secrets (as defined).
- Train employees about protections against disclosure of proprietary information.
- Insist that employees turn on privacy settings for any social media accounts they use for business.
- Impose restrictions on access to proprietary information. (If there is a lawsuit, you will certainly be asked, What kinds of restrictions did you place on this information? says Yip.).
- Restrictions can be physical or electronic.
- Address the problem of departing employees.
- Take control of your organization’s presence in the social media space.
- Monitor your organization’s online presence, for example, with Google alerts.
Social media—new kid on the block, but don’t forget your basics, like job descriptions.
As the economy comes back, you may be tempted to plop down at the computer, dig up the same old job descriptions you’ve always used, and cut and paste away. Or you may just pass off the task to the nearest intern. Either way, you may not be getting the most out of your job descriptions.
Job descriptions aren’t merely lists of qualifications and duties. To the contrary, they are active documents by which you determine who you will hire, and how you will evaluate and compensate the people who will eventually fill those jobs.
With new technology and an improving job market, you’ll soon find yourself facing a buyers’ market of applicants who will have many more jobs and offers to consider. This makes writing concise and effective job descriptions a crucial component for setting your organization apart from the competition in order to attract the best candidates.
Fortunately, there’s good news in the form of a timely new webinar, Job Descriptions with Value: Strategies, Tools, and Technology to Optimize Job Description Content.
In just 90 minutes, you’ll learn tips for writing job descriptions with value so you can hire, evaluate, and compensate the best candidates.
Register today for this interactive webinar.
Job Descriptions 101. Join us for an interactive webcast Job Descriptions with Value: Strategies, Tools, and Technology to Optimize Job Description Content. Earn 1.5 hours in HRCI Recertification Credit. Register Now
By participating in this interactive webcast, you’ll learn:
Join us march 25 to participate in this interactive webinar where you will learn:
- How value-added job descriptions are now being used to support recruiting, on-boarding, performance management, succession planning, and compensation.
- The critical role job descriptions play in helping organizations develop and manage high-performing workforces and supporting talent-management programs.
- How to draft richly detailed, outcome- and performance-based job descriptions that are concise and effective.
- How to accurately devise job descriptions that reflect the competencies, experiences, and educational requirements needed for an employee’s success in a given role.
- Specific steps needed to develop a clearly defined and legally compliant job description with the manager as the primary owner of the role.
- How to leverage new technologies to build, manage, and integrate job description content with your performance management processes.
- Legal considerations you must think about when adjusting job descriptions for value, including the ADA, pay equity, labor intense considerations, and more.
- Bonus Material: Attendees will receive a job description template they can customize for their workplaces!
Register now for this event risk-free.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)
12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Central)
11:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Mountain)
10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Approved for Recertification Credit
This program has been approved for 1.5 recertification credit hours toward recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI).
Join us on March 25—you’ll get the in-depth Job Descriptions with Value: Strategies, Tools, and Technology to Optimize Job Description Content webcast AND you’ll get all of your particular questions answered by our experts.
Train Your Entire Staff
As with all BLR/HRhero webcasts:
- Train all the staff you can fit around a conference phone.
- You can get your (and their) specific phoned-in or emailed questions answered in Q&A sessions that follow each segment of the presentation.