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Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Connecticut Technology Council’s IT Summit.

The panel discussion, entitled “Social Media: How to Manage Your New Digital Workfoce and Your Workforce ‘Friends’”, explored the impact of social networking on how businesses communicate with customers and employees, and how to reconcile the need for security and control with the desire to remain flexbile and competitive.

My law partner, Glenn Cunningham, served as panel moderator and Christopher Luise, executive vice president at ADNET Technologies, LLC joined me.

One of the questions that was raised during the IT Summit was one that I sometimes hear.  Paraphrasing, the question was essentially this: “I think social media is just a waste of time for employees.  There is no return on investment for it. And what am I supposed to do with a young employee who spends four hours on Facebook each day?”

There’s a lot of subtext to a question like this and it would be easy to discount the person’s views as someone who just “doesn’t get it” with social media.Continue Reading “My Employee is on Facebook Four Hours a Day. What Do I Do?”

Job Whisperer

It may be hard to remember, but during the first year of the blog in mid-2007 to 2008, there was barely a mention of social media and its impact in the workplace.  Just a single reference in January 2008 noting that with sites like Myspace (!), “employees from around the country can share information instantly, making it much easier to figure out if there are trends associated with the layoff that may give rise to a lawsuit.”

Then, in September 2008, I talked about how employers were considering using those sites to “screen” potential candidates for employment.   I suggested against it at the time.  But what I also suggested back then is that employers needed to recognize the sites’ growing influence.

Yes, some college grads put some boasts on their site, but Facebook has moved so quickly into the mainstream that many people are using it as a communication tool, far removed from their college years.

That was just five years ago, but really, it feels so much longer than that.

Flash forward to today.  91 percent of American own cell phones.  63 percent of those owners use their cell phones to go online, mainly through apps used on devices like the iPhone.  As a September 2013 Pew Internet study found, a majority of Americans “now owns a smartphone, and mobile devices are playing an increasingly central role in the way that Americans access online services and information.”

Social media accounts for a significant portion of that usage.  89 percent (!) of 18-29 year olds online use social networking sites.  Even among 30-49 year olds, that percentage is 78 percent.

But what sites are they using and how?

You’ve no doubt heard of YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Maybe Foursquare and Google+ (poor Google).   And if you’ve been following the blog, you know that Instagram (a photo sharing site) and Vine (a video sharing site) are growing in influence as well.  But what about everything else?

When I spoke to a group of people last week, a few wore their ignorance of social media as a badge of honor.  But in my view, employers ought to understand the scope of the issue; they may not need to use all the sites, but it’s only when you understand how much is out there that you begin to appreciate the scope of the social media issue.

Take, for example, Whisper to which I referenced yesterday. A few people responded, “huh?”
Continue Reading Snap(chat), Kik & Whisper: What Social Networking Apps Your Employees Are Using Today

For many years, employers set up firewalls at work that prevented employees from going to certain websites.

Didn’t want your employees shopping at Amazon? Block the site.

Didn’t want your employees posting updates at Facebook? Block the site.

But here’s the reality: Smartphones have made those firewalls meaningless.  Information, as I’ve said before, wants to…

Interested in social media for business but wondering how to deal with a policy to manage it?

Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Technology & Business Development is sponsoring an executive breakfast series seminar on October 3, 2013 from 7:30-9:30 a.m. on Social Media Policy.

I will be among the panel of speakers discussing the…

In a closely watched case, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a “Like” on Facebook is a form of speech that is protected under the First Amendment.

In doing so, it kept alive a lawsuit brought by an employee who claims he was fired for supporting an political candidate who was running…

At the Connecticut Bar Association’s Annual Meeting, NLRB Boston Regional Director Jonathan Kreisberg gave a thorough update on the agenda of the federal agency.

While most of the discussion focused on the latest pronouncements of social media, during my presentation on Vine and other photo/video social media sites, he also mentioned something that hasn’t often…

With apologies (credit?) to Randy Newman, you’ve got a friend in me.  Or at least an online “friend.”  It’s better than having enemies, right?

Regardless, you’re cordially invited to join me and others for another Pullman & Comley, LLC webinar on employment law. 

I’ll be leading the charge this time around with this webinar entitled:…

The Connecticut General Assembly’s Labor & Public Employee Committee today is considering drafting a proposed bill “to prevent current or potential employers from requesting or requiring that employees or potential employees provide passwords to their personal accounts as a condition of their employment.”

I won’t mince words. Proposed Senate Bill 159 is a…

Yesterday, The New York Times — about a gazillion years after this blog and other employment law blogs talked about it ad nauseum — wrote their definitive piece entitled on how “federal regulators” are “ordering employers to scale back policies that limit what employees can say online.”

The headline?  “Even If It Enrages Your Boss, Social Net Speech Is Protected.”

Are you scared yet? Hopefully not, because if you’ve been following this blog at all, you know that such pronouncements are misguided and overblown.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t review your policies to make sure that they are appropriately tailored. And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t exercise caution before firing an employee who just said something about someone at work on Facebook. 

But, it is far past the time when we should treat each pronouncement or each article on social media as this huge development that requires employers to change everything time and again.

Social media — like the telephone, fax machine or e-mail before it — is now just another communications tool that is here to stay in one form or another.   If you don’t get it yet or look at those who use it with disdain, you’re simply missing out on a tool that can be useful to your employees and to you.   The one billion people who use Facebook aren’t suddenly going to wake up tomorrow and decide that its not useful.    

Let me give you a real-world example outside the workplace and how I’m convinced that social media is for everyone now.Continue Reading The Last Post About Social Media & Employment Law Ever. (Maybe.) (Not Really.)