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Social Networking Behavioral Agreements At Work?
r0nc0 writes "My company (a Fortune 15 company) has recently required everyone that accesses the company portal to accept or decline an 'agreement' that governs the use of social networking. It basically states that any discussion of the company or any of the work that you do, whether at the office or at home, must be governed by their rules of social networking. Naturally these rules are that you never say anything bad or negative about the company, nor do you say anything bad or negative about anything. It's presented like a EULA, but if you decline more than 3 times your manager is notified. Naturally I declined it each time until my manager complained to me about all the email he was getting about me not accepting the agreement, so I went ahead and accepted, knowing that anybody who cares would just post anonymously anyway. This is the first time I've run into a forced agreement about social networking, and the agreement is so broad that it can't possibly be enforced. I've tried pointing out that agreements like that only drive people away and aren't necessary anyway, but I might as well talk to a brick wall. Has anyone else out there run into social networking behavioral agreements like this?"
Perhaps most importantly, is it even legal for them to force an existing employee into new terms of employment in his jurisdiction?
A good practice for the employee is to never say anything regarding your employer's business that you have not been authorized to say on your employer's behalf, period. Another is to never allow your personal opinion about something outside your company be mistaken as a company statement. The usual "these thoughts do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer" disclaimer is usually effective for the latter.
It's scary that they are having people agree to something through harassment, though. Everyone should have notice and a chance to show it to their own counsel before signing it.
If it really says that you can't say anything negative about anything publically, then wow.
Most employers have clauses about saying things in public about the company that are negative, or that would, by association, put the company in a bad light.
It's rather a tough call. For example, you're at a conference, holding court in the hallways, telling people what a crock of poop the competitions product is, in terms that are perhaps "less than professional". This calls the professionalism of your company into question.
Whenever you're operating under your corporate persona, you are generally bound by the rules of conduct. If that is spelled out in your employment agreement as "behave nicely in public", then I think that they're merely covering all their bases by being explicit about social networking sites.
But to broaden it, to include public statements made by you under your non-corporate persona is stretching things. If my private self spouts off about what a moron my ex wife is in a public forum, the company can hardly claim that I was speaking on behalf of the company in that context.
The fact is, that you can contractually bind yourself to giving away some of your free-speech rights. It has been the cost of having a "mega corporation" job for a long time, since long before the Internet was big, and social networking sites were around.
I worked for a company that had an off duty conduct policy. It was intended, I think, for people who get arrested or convicted for things that happen while they are not at work, eg drunk driving. However (comma pause for effect) it was generally used against people who complained about their boss or work on their own time. Kind of like this.
That company is IPC International Corporation. It's a contract security firm, so I doubt many people here would work for them, but throwing it out there just in case. It wasn't the way I would have liked to leave, but I thank G-d every day that I never have to deal with them again. It may seem like I have a lot of resentment toward them. Maybe I do... hindsight being 20/20 I should have taken unemployment and finished my degree. (which I am doing now.)
Also that policy applied to the guards, maybe not management. Or it may be even more restrictive for management.
Looking at the current Fortune 15, a whole lotta those companies have been in the news. I can imagine his company wanting to minimize any amount of bad publicity they can, right down to the musings of their employees. Citigroup, in particular, who received a fair amount of bailout money, may not want it known if its rank and file employees are using extragent perks. Just an example.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
I don't know why they force you to agree to it. Unless there's some sort of union agreement or tenure issue, most people are at-will employees, at least in the US, and can be fired at any time for any reason.
Maybe the issue is firing for cause, which allows companies to get out of their obligation to pay unemployment, as I understand it, but if it's just a matter of separating the wheat and the chaff, they don't need an agreement to do this.
It goes like this: "Hey, look, this employee clearly isn't happy, and instead of dealing with their manager or colleagues, they're airing their dirty laundry to the world. This isn't the kind of person we want to trust with our trade secrets. G'bye!"
A better company would have identified the problems sooner by using good performance management methodologies which would encourage open and honest communication among the ranks, but many companies can't be bothered. There's a growing sector of the talent management software market that deals with this because some companies do realize that they can save a lot of cutter by keeping their good employees happy and not resorting to these sorts of punitive measures.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Sounds like if he did not accept the EULA-style agreement a few times and they keep asking him, he's being harassed at work. A good lawyer would put a stop to it. And if he did get caught out, then a good lawyer could definitely make a case that he was badgered into agreeing.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
>>>is it even legal for them to force an existing employee into new terms of employment in his jurisdiction?
Probably not. Just because you sign an agreement, does not make it binding. During the Paypal trial, most of their user agreement was declared "null" on the basis that citizens can not sign-away rights/privileges enforced by State or U.S. law. So eventually I think you'll find most of these corporate-enforced EULAs that forbid discussing the job while at home will be nullified by the courts - probably on the basis of Constitutional law - we just haven't reached that point yet.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Funny, for me it's been the reverse--from a young age I felt that it was very wrong to lie and almost never did (and always felt bad about it). Only later did I discover (much to my surprise and, when participating in it, discomfort) that being disingenuous and even lying outright is not only widely accepted in the adult world, but very often expected.
This is especially common in business, I've found, where being perfectly honest on a résumé and/or application will practically never land you a job, especially on those "why do you want to work here"-type question (let's face it, 99% of the time the real answer is "I want money and this job sounds like it won't suck too much"). Then there's "networking" which often involves creating a whole false persona. It's sickening, but damn-near unavoidable, and certainly considered to be normal and acceptable.