Connecticut Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Daniel Schwartz : Stamford, Hartford New Haven, CT

Today's Guest Blogger is Evil HR Lady.  I should tell you that I do know her first name; but she has told me that she'd hunt me down if I revealed her identity.  So instead, I've asked her to provide a short blurb to introduce her; here was her candid response:

Evil HR Lady works for a Fortune 500 Company making sure that as many people as possible get fired. Hence, the Evil part of her name. She blogs and takes questions here.

Nothing like an HR person with a sense of humor, right? Well, she also has a very entertaining blog that part Ask Amy, and part Jack and Suzy Welch.  Her bio "picture" is of brownies.  But her wit aside, it's good reading for some down-to-earth HR advice, without all the legal jargon. 

Here are her thoughts on one company's blogging policy:

Wal-mart doesn't exactly have the best reputation in the blogosphere.

For example: Wake-Up Walmart is dedicated to exposing the company's wrongs. The popular (and now defunct, as the author quit her Wal-Mart job) Behind the Counter detailed how Wal-Mart's policies resulted in bad behavior by customers. And, back in the blogging dark ages (2006), Wal-Mart had to admit that a public relations firm was writing a blog that purported to be independent.

I'm not going to get into the reasons for the lack of Wal-mart love. For full disclosure, I occasionally shop at Wal-mart, and would do so more often if it were: a) closer to me and b) didn't require a 3 hour wait in a checkout line.

All of these things considered (and the fact that I used to work at rival K-Mart, which has it's own nightmare stories), I was shocked to find the New York Times reporting that Wal-mart buyers were writing an uncensored blog.

Wow. That takes guts in the business world. Sure, it's one thing to trust your employees with your customers. It's another thing to let them loose on the internet.

The internet is forever.

Don't believe me? Just try deleting your Facebook page to hide your foolish exploits of youth from a googling supervisor. Even if you succeed, there's no guarantee that someone else hasn't copied, posted and preserved what you said originally.

So, I'm officially impressed. Well, not officially, officially. We'll see how the blog goes and if upper management (and the PR people) can keep their hands off it. If they can, and it remains "uncensored" (and the employees writing it continue to feel free to express their true opinions), then I'll be officially impressed.

Editor's note: Hearing the Evil HR Lady name, I can't help but think of the classic ELO song, Evil Woman. Fortunately, there's already someone who combined that song with another favorite: Lost.  You can take a gander below:

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Been a long week, the weather in Connecticut is turning icy, and well, there's just enough time for some short updates today.  Fortunately, the Super Bowl is coming and my New York Giants are still playing (no predictions here on a winner, however.)  And Groundhog day is tomorrow; an article below suggests that it may hold more meaning, if you've ever seen the Bill Murray movie.

Here's some things you might have missed this week that are worth taking a look at.

• Robert Fitzpatrick, who publishes the (somewhat wordy title of) Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland Employment and Labor Law Blog, has an interesting post about company blogging policies.  It's a good continuing of a post I wrote last fall on a similar subject.   In that same post, he also notes that there is some additional whistleblower protection to certain defense contractors built into the large defense spending bill signed earlier this week.
  
• Michael Fox has a thoughtful post continuing a blogosphere discussion on the unintended consequences of various employment laws. Something to think about as Congress debates various new employment provisions.
  
• The Strategic HR Lawyer has a fun post about "Super Bowl flu" -- which afflicts an estimated 1.5 million Americans each year.  (The remedy, I've been told, is a day of fasting to make up for all the pizza being eaten on Super Bowl Sunday.)
  
  
• From an HR perspective, Business Week has a good article this week about the "Groundhog Day Effect". Yes, someone has taken that classic Bill Murray movie and made a book out of it -- with workplace lessons for us all. (Reliving the same day over and over again is not required.)
  
  
• The Evil Hr Lady, and the HR Capitalist have a series of posts about IBM's recent decision to reclassify workers as non-exempt (and therefore eligible for overtime). As a result, IBM has also reduced these employees' base pay.  While it may make for a difficult human resources explanation, it is a workable solution to a difficult issue.
  
• The WSJ Law Blog has a good post warning litigants not to use their work e-mail to discuss their cases with their lawyers. For companies, it's a good reminder that monitoring employees' e-mails may lead to some interesting discoveries.

Happy Groundhog Day and go Giants!

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The blog has been unusually quiet the last 36 hours or so, though it's not for lack of effort. I had a blog posting I was incredibly proud of with great links, documents, and research.  A thing of beauty.  I was already daydreaming of the other blogs that would seek it out (WSJ Law Blog or Above The Law here we come!).

So why are you reading this entry instead? Because of the potential for disrupting a lawfirm connection or two.  In essence, after drafting the entry, I decided that it was better to not publish it and preserve relationships that the firm has with clients and customers than risk jeopardizing the relationship (even though I have nothing to do with that relationship).  In essence, despite a right to publish what I want, I decided that the better judgment is to not publish it.  I'm not happy with my decision, but I know its the "right" decision in this circumstance. 

But employers undoubtedly have employees with their own blogs of a far more personal nature. Will those employees use discretion in their posts? In other words, even when they do not post about the company that they work at, will they decide to NOT blog about an employer's competitors or customers?  Do they even THINK about the effect their blog will have on their employer?

The answer to these questions may be hard to determine but a well-defined blogging policy at the company can at least provide a head start on the answers.  If your company does not have one, its time to implement a simple straightforward one.  Blogging (or even microblogging) is not going anywhere.

So what should a policy state? It depends on the company. Financial services industry companies will have particular worries with insider trading rules, etc. A small retail store will have different concerns.  A technology company still other concerns.  But the framework can start (but not end) with the following. 

1. Employees can be instructed that they should not comment or use any confidential information about the company or discuss internal matters.  (Whether the employee should be allowed to identify the employer is a business decision for the company.) 
   
2. Employees should be told that blogs should be done during non-working  hours and not using Company resources, unless authorized by the company.
3. Employees should be told that the blog should have appropriate disclaimers that indicate that all views on the blog are those of the individual and have not been reviewed or approved by the Bank.
4. Employees should be told that the blog should not imply sponsorship, endorsement or support by the company, nor should the blog use any logos or trademarks of the company.
5. Employees should be instructed that the blogs should not be libelous or defamatory, and that the blogs should avoid being written in a way in which it could be construed as harassing or discriminatory on the basis of a protected category. 
   

My colleague, Charles Wilson, had another great piece of wisdom that shows that a policy is but one aspect of an overall approach for a company :

Make sure to establish an open conduit for discussion regarding wages, discrimination and sexual harassment. Forcing your employees to air your company's dirty laundry on the Internet is a bad idea especially when an equally user-friendly channel is available that won't have the whole world watching.

In short, a company should set a policy and create an atmosphere that gives employees the proper context to using blogs.  Without such parameters, employees are left in no man's land, left to wonder if what they are doing is acceptable or not. 

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