What Clinton, Um, Trump Means For Social Media and Employment Law

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

This was supposed to be posted last Wednesday morning. All kinds of great insight into what a(nother) Clinton White House would mean for social media and employment law. Then came the required post-election cut and paste. Well, really the cut.

So I waited until Saturday Night Live made it official over the weekend, and can now begin to opine on what a Trump White House might mean for social media and employment law. So let’s start with one of the biggest protagonists of the last two-act (term) play: the NLRB. If you have read this blog before (or, really, virtually anything having to do with employment law), you know that the NLRB under President Obama has been uber aggressive – and, some might say, extreme – over the past 8 years when it comes to coming down hard on employers for their social media policies and other restrictions imposed on employee behavior. Policies, practices, and employment agreements that have been employer staples for decades have been struck down by the NLRB under the guise of a broad, pro-employee interpretation of “protected concerted activity.”

Ironically, just on Tuesday (Election Day), the three-member NLRB issued a decision in In re: Component Bar Products that actually/still/unbelievably faulted the employer for maintaining workplace rules that prohibit “insubordination” and prohibit “boisterous and disruptive activity.” I get the NLRB’s desire to avoid overbroad and undefined terms that might prevent or chill employees from engaging in protected activity. But employers can’t prevent insubordination or boisterous activity through social media activity or in person?

So, what to make of a Trump administration? The NLRB is a five-member federal agency that currently has two vacancies. Of its three members, two are Democrats whose staggered terms end in August 2018 and December 2019. The Democratic General Counsel of the NLRB ends his four-year term in November 2017, while the lone Republican member ends his term in December 2017. The NLRB’s Senate-confirmed members and General Counsel (the one who “prosecutes” the NLRB charges) are the ones responsible for setting the agency’s policies and priorities. There will undoubtedly be a changing of the guard at the NLRB. Which takes us to…

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

It was a lot easier to predict what a(nother) Clinton White House would likely have meant for the next four or eight years at the NLRB. It is much more difficult to predict a President Trump impact since he has been somewhat less than clear on his approach to these types of issues specifically. So in some respects, we are just guessing this early.

Still, the NLRB’s policies and priorities are very much subject to the shifting winds of changing political administrations, which means that a President Trump administration will have an opportunity to shape a Republican-dominated board when he is able to make his appointments. It may take some time, however, so employers are cautioned not to throw their hesitation out the window and go back to being trigger happy with making decisions based on an employee’s social media activity.

But when Trump does get to his NLRB appointments, it is very likely that employers will see a less aggressive approach to social media policies and employment agreements, and perhaps a more pro-employer stance on the agency’s rulings regarding the regulation of employee use of social media. Perhaps.

Or maybe not.

About The Author

Tagged with: Clinton, National Labor Relations Board, New York Employment Law, NLRB, Policies, Social Media And Employment Law, Trump, Workplace
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

Banning Employee E-Mailing?

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Michael Schmidt — 4 Comments ↓

“Everything in moderation,” I’m always saying. Exercise, TV, French fries. Well, I tend to moderate my exercise a tad more than my French fries, but I digress. What about technology? Social media? Those who know me know that I am a big believer in being able to disconnect sometimes, and that I often shout from the soapbox how we need to strike the appropriate balance personally and professionally when it comes to gluing our eyes and staple-gunning our hands to our phones and the social media displayed on them. For those of you out there who can’t (or won’t) disconnect yourself, the government may be stepping in.

Everyone’s aware of the wage and hour initiatives sweeping the federal, state and local landscapes, all of which seem designed to increase employee pay and strengthen employees’ work/life balance. New overtime rules, increased minimum wage, paid sick leave. Predictive scheduling. Next up on the agenda: legislating when employees can and cannot be required to engage in work e-mail.

Other countries are trying it. France, for example, just proposed a labor reform amendment that provides for companies to specify the hours when employees cannot send or receive e-mail. This employee disconnect push seems to stem from studies showing that there is far more and constant work-related stress than there used to be. What a radical concept. Needed a study for that? More importantly, is this an appropriate area for (more) government intervention into the workplace?

Back to the States. Last year at this time, the United States Department of Labor issued its 2015 Spring regulatory agenda, which advised the public that the DOL intended to publish a request for information in August 2015 to determine whether the creation of a new rule on employee use of portable electronic devices was necessary. Sort of the issuance of a rule to determine if a rule will be necessary. Nothing happened last summer. Now, the DOL has re-issued the same announcement as part of its 2016 Spring regulatory agenda, which expands the missive slightly:

“The Department is publishing a Request for Information to gather information about employees’ use of electronic devices to perform work outside of regularly scheduled work hours and away from the workplace, as well as information regarding “last minute” scheduling practices being utilized by some employers that are made possible in large part by employees’ use of these devices.”

The revised date for the issuance of the request for information is July 2016. We’ll see. I am keeping my expectations in moderation.

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

If the responses received by the DOL do prompt a new DOL rule/regulation, employers should expect guidance on the following, for good or bad:

What the DOL considers to be compensable time when employees engage in activity using portable devices.
How the DOL defines “de minimus” time in the context of the performance of work that does not need to be compensated.
Whether new and more burdensome recordkeeping obligations will be imposed on employers, based on some recognition that traditional time sheets and punch cards may not work as well for after-hours, offsite activities.
The extent to which employers should – or even must – have “e-mail curfews,” or are otherwise going to be regulated as to how often and under what specific circumstances employers can require after-hours, offsite work.

Until then, it might even be a good idea still to evaluate the nature and extent to which your company has employees utilizing portable devices or remote access for work-related reasons, and whether you are complying with the myriad of employment laws that apply to such use already.

About The Author

Tagged with: Department of Labor, DOL, French law, New York Employment Law, portable devices, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, Wage And Hour
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

The Final Four – Do Employers Care?

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

Much time will be spent this week in person and online trying to make money on the NCAA tournament. There’s the blog hook for today. Online technology, and social media in particular, have made it much easier for employees to participate in all things college basketball, and to sit in the office and participate with those outside the four walls of the office.

If you haven’t been asked to join an NCAA pool yet, it’s more than likely that it’s not because you have no friends at work. Although the games do start today. But are NCAA pools legal? And is there any impact of social media? Many states exempt “social gambling” from their anti-gambling statutes. “Social gambling” is generally defined as playing for money in a purely social context, where no player (or other person, such as a host) can make anything more or different than from simply being a player like any other player. As long as the entire pool is distributed, with nothing taken “off the top,” it is generally ok in many states.

Nevertheless, the issue of office NCAA pools and social media raise a few noteworthy points:

1. Loss of Productivity and Time? March Madness blogging and posting, and surfing the ‘Net for all things basketball, will take a lot of time. Time at work, and during working hours.

2. Can Bobby Come Out To Play? Office NCAA pools should be open to everyone, and shouldn’t be a means for violating other workplace policies, such as by harassing or discriminating against people who choose not to join or who are not asked to join.

3. Social = Social? Permissible “social gambling” generally requires some social relationship, meaning that the promotion of your office pool to those outside the company through social media may lead to a pool that includes those with whom there is no bona fide social relationship.

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

There are certainly bigger pictures that your company should consider when it comes to important issues and policies involving gambling and the impact that social media has had on workplace gambling. For the next three weeks, however, the reality is that this may be just another example of a lawyer turned NCAA Scrooge, as it is unlikely that the cast of Law & Order will be coming into your establishment merely as a result of these games. Perhaps you can just relax a little and allow for the morale of your employees to improve with the excitement and buildup of the year’s biggest sports tournament. It’ll all be over in a few weeks. And then we’ll have the excitement of baseball….

About The Author

Tagged with: Final Four, March Madness, NCAA pool, New York Employment Law, Office Pool, Social Gambling, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

Beware the Facebook Settlement Disclosure

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

We continue to toe the line between privacy rights and social media activity. Typically, though, it’s the employee looking to protect the privacy principle. Not this time.

In the context of settlement agreements in employment lawsuits, employers generally have the greater interest in restricting public discussion and disclosure for fear that others will learn about significant monetary payments made by the company to end a lawsuit. For that reason, settlement agreements tend to contain non-disclosure/non-publicity provisions that preclude the settling employee/plaintiff from disclosing certain aspects of the settlement.

In Grullon v. Liberato, the parties settled a wage and hour lawsuit for a sizeable amount and that agreement included non-publicity provisions. Nevertheless, according to court documents filed by the defendants, an immigrant labor group involved in the case made

“a series of public postings on Facebook announcing that ‘after leading a two-year fight against wage theft, sexual harassment, and unsafe working conditions, Liberato Restaurant workers ha[d] officially won. . . . On Monday they received their first settlement checks.’”

Yet, according to court documents filed by the plaintiffs, the relevant provision in the settlement agreement made clear that the settlement agreement “is a public document” and that the only thing that could not be publicized was “the settlement sums paid by defendants in connection with this settlement[.]”

The federal judge agreed with plaintiffs and ruled as follows:

“The non-publicity and non-disparagement clauses of the Settlement Agreement do not preclude plaintiffs from discussing the nature of their claims, the litigation, or the settlement (but not the settlement amount), and plaintiffs’ conduct does not violate those provisions.”

Because the agreement only prohibited disclosure of the settlement amount itself, there was no violation from the disclosure of everything else.

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

There is a trend today, particularly in wage and hour lawsuits, to give greater access to information about public lawsuits and to restrict the ability of parties to shield such public access through onerous confidentiality provisions. This Liberato decision offers two takeaways:

1. Where not otherwise barred by law (or a particular judge), make sure that the non-disclosure/non-publicity provisions in your settlement agreement is clear and specific about all of the subjects that you want to protect from disclosure.

2. Make sure that your settlement agreements are similarly clear that disclosure through social media is as prohibited as if the disclosure were made through some other means.

About The Author

Tagged with: confidentiality, New York Employment Law, non-disclosure, non-publicity, settlement agreement, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, Wage And Hour
Posted in Opinions

Won’t You Please, Please Yelp Me?

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

Yelp, I need somebody

Yelp, not just anybody

Yelp, you know I need someone

Yelp!

My apologies to the Beatles. But the notion that one can’t do it alone and expect to be protected, may just be an apt moral in today’s world of social media and employment law.

Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find local businesses, and then review those that they use. Apparently, Yelp itself is not immune to criticism by its own employees. A Yelp employee just posted an open letter on “Medium,” an alternative blogging platform launched in 2012 for anyone who has anything to say. The open letter was directed at Yelp’s CEO, and complained about the employee having to work in customer service for a year before being able to move into another position, and how she could not afford food or rent on a $733 biweekly wage in San Francisco. Shortly after the open letter was posted, the employee was fired.

Yelp me if you can, I’m feeling down

And I do appreciate you being ‘round

Yelp me get my feet back on the ground

Won’t you please, please yelp me?

It’s not the intent here to comment on the pros and cons of pay equity, or the proposed rise in minimum wage in certain parts of the country, or even whether this particular employee in her particular circumstances had a valid gripe. For present purposes, it is simply worth noting that the fatal flaw in her case may just be that her open letter seems to relate to an individual gripe that she had with her employer, rather than a conversation engaged in collectively with other co-workers or one that was intended to solicit co-workers to join in collective activity. In other words, she apparently had no help with her yelp.

Given that Yelp is a private employer, this employee won’t get much mileage out of a general “free speech” argument. The protections afforded in the Constitution do not apply to non-state actors. And as far as the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) and the NLRB go, she also might not find success there if she challenges her termination. As avid readers of this blog know well by now, while the Act protects concerted activity concerning wages and the terms and conditions of one’s workplace, the threshold requirement is that that activity must be concerted in the first instance. Since there do not appear to be any statements being made in concert, this employee may be out of luck without having sung:

Yelp, I need somebody

Yelp, not just anybody

Yelp, you know I need someone

Yelp!

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

Employers do feel sometimes that the law is trending so far against them that there is nothing they can do to discipline or terminate otherwise at-will employees. That is not necessarily true, though the takeaway continues to be that employers must analyze particular circumstances on a case-by-case basis, keeping in mind certain general parameters that are starting to be developed in social media and employment law. Depending on the public/private status of the employer, federal or state constitutions may or may not apply, just as certain statutes such as the Act may or may not apply depending on who engaged in the activity and the nature of the activity itself.

Careful analysis is needed before taking any adverse employment action against an employee. Employers are also wise to make sure their analysis is not limited to one or two of the “well-known” sources of legal obligations, but takes into account the myriad of employment laws that may have some applicability to the situation. In the end, employers may be able to take adverse action based on an employee’s statement or conduct. But first, employers should seek the appropriate yelp.

About The Author

Tagged with: National Labor Relations Act, New York Employment Law, NLRB, Protected Concerted Activity, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, Yelp
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

It’s Still The Relationships, Stupid – 2015 Wrap Up (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

It is this time every year, as I am wrapping things up over at “social media and employment law blog” central, – and particularly in this latest political election year – that I am reminded of that election campaign more than twenty years ago when Bill Clinton coined the phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Well, the economy is still in a bit of flux, but Clinton’s message still resonates in my mind as I reach the end of another year. Just as I came back to it at the end of last year: “It’s still the relationships, stupid.”

Social media and technology continue to be great things. Both have revolutionized our lives in ways never before imagined, and, at the same time, have dramatically impacted the relations between employer and employee to an extent that will never go away. Employees are using wearable technology in the workplace, and “selfie” has even been added to our dictionary. We have continued to discuss and dissect many instances in 2015 where employers have been told to toe the fine lines and manage the interplay between social media and employee relations.

For example, making sure your company crafts the narrowly-tailored social media policy that protects your legitimate business interests, while at the same time avoiding the overbroad and undefined terms that may chill your employees from engaging in protected concerted activity. Reaping the benefits of the World Wide Web as a source of information on applicants, but making sure you don’t learn “too much information.” Maintaining your right to monitor what goes on in your workplace and on your working time, but being mindful of your employees’ privacy rights. And, understanding how compliance with traditional laws such as wage and hour requirements can be increasingly difficult with employee use of social media and technology. The rules and opinions, and the prognosticator do’s and don’ts, will continue to evolve, and most likely repeatedly change, as we dart past another New Year’s Eve later this week.

But I guess my point at the end of this year too, ironically enough, is to stop reading electronic posts like this for a minute, get your face out of your smartphone or monitor, don’t worry about capturing your hundredth selfie (that same afternoon), and simply look up to talk to someone. Anyone. Let’s turn off the technology for a moment, and ask why your company is (and will be) ultimately successful. Let’s also ask why your company may be able to successfully avoid legal pitfalls and litigation. The answer: It’s still the relationships, stupid.

I continue to argue that the definition of a “plaintiff” in a lawsuit is a “pissed-off employee.” The more you communicate with your employees, the more you walk and talk the hallways, and the more your relationships with your employees are valued within the bounds of existing law, the more successful your business will be and the more likely it is that you can avoid employment disputes. Valuing, being responsive to, and maintaining your inter-personal relationships with your employees, customers, clients, vendors, and business partners will still prove to be the most important precursor to a successful bottom line.

Employer Take Away: So, what is the final takeaway from 2015? What should you as an employer take away from this development? The rapid explosion of social media, and its impact on the workplace, will never take away from the value of true inter-personal relationships. As great as today’s advances are, it doesn’t always have to be about apps, status updates, and mass communication from behind a keyboard. It also doesn’t mean that we need to give into technology at the expense of our interpersonal relationships, and the face-to-face communications that still must take place.

Individually, we are no different than we are professionally. We spend so much time connecting to someone who is not in front of us, that it’s easy to ignore what is right in front of us. We are so worried about tomorrow and next week, that the happy, meaningful and productive parts of today go unnoticed. We are so obsessed with typing to the world in words and pictures about where we are and what we’re doing, that we’re not at all focused on precisely where we are, what we’re doing, and who we’re doing it with. To me, we are successful – professionally and individually – through the relationships right in front of us.

So maybe for this holiday season, we can find even an hour to put down the BlackBerry (they still exist?) and iPhone, get to that e-mail or text in a little while, and keep the terrific picture we were about to post solely in our own heads for now. Enjoy the moment right in front of us, as it will always be about those relationships, stupid.

I greatly appreciate the time you have taken to read my blog this year, and I hope that I have provided you with some useful, informative, and perhaps occasionally entertaining insights on the interaction between social media and employment law. I look forward to continuing that effort for you in 2016. I wish you and your families a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

About The Author

Tagged with: 2015, Bill Clinton, New York Employment Law, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, social media policy
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

Poetic Justice – 2015 Wrap Up (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Michael Schmidt — 3 Comments ↓

This is the time of year to anxiously look forward to all that is anticipated to come in 2016. But it is also the time to look back at all that has happened in 2015. Rather than simply give you links to all of my stimulating blog entries from the year that has passed (I’m confident you know how to search “archives” on this blog), I thought I would instead do the “2015 Year In Review” in song, as I have done this time the past few years. So, if you know the tune to “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” please close your office door and sing along to this reminder of the many 2015 social media concepts that I leave with you for the holidays:

The 1^st social media

Reminder left for me

Beware still the N-L-R-B

The 2^nd social media

Reminder left for me

Care with office parties

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 3^rd social media

Reminder left for me

Summons served on Facebook

Care with office parties

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 4^th social media

Reminder left for me

Wearable technology

Summons served on Facebook

Care with office parties

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 5^th social media

Reminder left for me

“Like” is free speech?

(dramatic pause)

Using Google Glass

Serve summons

Care at party time

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 6^th social media

Reminder left for me

Internal cyber audits

“Liking” is free speech

Wearing tech on wrists

Summons served by MySpace

Selfies at your parties

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 7^th social media

Reminder left for me

E-Suggestion boxes

Hackers’ got our data

“Like” is free speech!

Apple watch is ticking

Service

Care at party time

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 8^th social media

Reminder left for me

Signing love contracts

Online endorsements

Data breach is coming

“Like” is free speech

Tracking wage and hours

We’ll find you through your “friends”

Drinking while you’re texting

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 9^th social media

Reminder left for me

He called his boss a scumbag?

Love contract signings

Paid as endorser

Data breach and privacy

“Like” is free speech?

Wearable technology

Service

Photobomb your boss

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 10^th social media

Reminder left for me

Policies are too vague

He can call his boss a scumbag?

Textual harassment

Testimonials

BYOD

“Like” is free speech

Wearable tech trend

Service of your summons

Care at office parties

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 11^th social media

Reminder left for me

Politics and workplace

Overbroad policies

He called his boss a what??

Agree it’s consensual!

Reviewing you online

You lost your laptop where?

“Like” is free speech

Fitness tracker

Catfish relations

In-box is good service

And beware of the N-L-R-B

The 12^th social media

Reminder left for me

Manage expectations

Political discussion

Overbroad policies

He can call me a scumbag?

Sign the damn love contract

Online suggestion box

Cyber security

“Like” is free speech

Headbands see the future

Service on LinkedIn

Be careful at your parties

(All together:) And beware still the N-L-R-B!

About The Author

Tagged with: National Labor Relations Board, New York Employment Law, NLRB, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, social media policy, Twelve Days of Christmas"
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion

Like It Or Not, Your Employees Can Like It

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

It gets boring to blog just about the NLRB. We need some judicial action to get the juices flowing a little more. We got a little something last week.

Question: Is merely clicking the “like” button on Facebook tantamount to protected speech? I’ve argued that “liking” isn’t necessarily an act with any content at all. It could mean a lot of things, not the least of which could be that one Facebook user is simply “tagging” something with a “like” so that that user can have his or her “friends” see what the user has “tagged/liked.” Yes, I’m getting annoyed with all the quotes too.

In any event, the answer: Apparently yes. I first discussed the issue here on May 8, 2012, and again here on October 22, 2013. Then last year, on September 29, 2014, I noted here how the NLRB continued its pro-employee leanings by finding the click of the Facebook “like” button to constitute protected speech in In Re: Three D, LLC d/b/a Triple Play Sports Bar. In that case, employees were fired essentially for “liking” a post that was critical of their employer sports bar.

Just last week though, the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the NLRB’s decision. The Court spilled much ink on the appropriate deference to be afforded to a governmental entity like the NLRB, before going through an analysis of whether the employee’s click of the “like” button was protected and concerted (it held “yes”) and then whether the employee otherwise acted in such a disloyal manner to lose the protections under federal law (it held “no”). Implicit there is that the decision really assumed that merely “liking” something was an activity or speech that has sufficient substance to be protected in the first place.

The next step in this case, at least procedurally, is for both sides to argue whether this “summary order” by the 2d Circuit should be published as an actual order with precedential value (Note: according to 2d Circuit rule, “rulings by Summary Order do not have precedential value). But that’s like saying “don’t clean up the toothpaste that’s already out of the tube,” or “don’t go get that horse that’s out of the barn,” or, well, you get it. The 2d Circuit has spoken on this issue, and is the first appellate court to do so. Whether you like it or not.

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

So what’s next? A lawsuit over an employer firing an employee because it didn’t like a chosen emoji? I don’t know. What I do know is that your company still needs to carefully engage in the appropriate analysis when deciding whether to take adverse action against an employee for doing something – anything? – on social media. It’s not just what the employees expressly say, it may also be what they click.

About The Author

Tagged with: Facebook, like, New York Employment Law, NLRB, Protected Concerted Activity, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, speech, Triple Play Sports Bar
Posted in Opinions

Peeple Are Peeple

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Michael Schmidt — No Comments ↓

People are people so why should it be

You and I should get along so awfully

The English electronic band Depeche Mode sang that more than 32 years ago. Still applies, for some.

Social media has made it easier and quicker for everyone – your employees included – to post their feelings online about anything and everything, with far fewer filters around the virtual water cooler than at the physical water cooler when one is face-to-face with another. With that reality, comes a new reality: Employers need to be more vigilant than ever when it comes to recognizing and acknowledging the latest social media trends in workplace policies and employee training.

I can’t understand what makes a man

Hate another man, help me understand

Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find local businesses, and then review those that they use. Depending on your vantage point, and whether you were the recipient of a good review, that app was either a positive or a negative. But a recent announcement that there may be a review app coming for individual people changes the game a bit. The much talked-about potential “Peeple” app is referred to as Yelp for non-businesses. That is, it is an app that, when launched later this year (if at all), will allow people to rate other people. In its current beta phase, there appears to be nothing that anyone can do to avoid being rated.

Is there a positive use for this? Will people use the app to confirm whether they should be friends with someone, marry someone, hire someone? Or will this become another opp for an app to create strife and legal exposure?

People are people so why should it be

You and I should get along so awfully

Employer Take Away: What should you as an employer take away from this development?

No matter how many different vehicles we get to drive our personal opinions into the public domain, the (employment) rules of the road still apply:

1. Your company’s harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and violence in the workplace policies – and the employee training that you do – must recognize and acknowledge that inappropriate behavior through apps and other forms of social media is still inappropriate. What is said to and about another employee on an app like Peeple must still be subject to scrutiny.

2. Your employees should be told that statements may still be deemed defamatory even when made through apps and other forms of social media (in its current form, it does not appear that “Peeple” users will be allowed to post anonymously).

3. With the whole purpose of “Peeple” being to rate individuals, your company should make clear its expectations and policies on providing references for and about former employees of your company, much like the “like” Facebook button and similar capabilities on LinkedIn have increased the likelihood that unsanctioned, and perhaps unintended, references are being given by employees not working in your centralized human resources department.

People are people, and your company needs to constantly stay abreast of what your employees are doing in this new social media era.

About The Author

Tagged with: Depeche Mode, employee reviews, New York Employment Law, Peeple, references, Social Media And Employment Law, Social Media Blog, workplace policies, Yelp
Posted in General Social Media/Employment Law Discussion