Despite these guidelines, the lines between what is acceptable social media behavior and what companies can legally prohibit often get blurred, many times due to a lack of common sense on the part of the employee.
One example of this comes from 2013, when Applebee's waitress Chelsea Welch was fired from her St. Louis-area restaurant for a photo of a receipt she shared publicly on Reddit. Welch had snapped a photo of a co-worker's receipt on which the customer, a pastor as noted by the customer's signature, had left no tip along with the comment "I give God 10%, why do you get 18?" The photo Welch posted was meant as "a lighthearted joke," but the photo went viral as she neglected to omit the customer's easily legible signature from the receipt before posting the photo to Reddit (Morran, 2013).
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| via Consumerist |
Applebee's President Mike Archer told CBS news that "there was no choice but to fire the waitress for violating the customer's privacy rights and the company's social media policy" (Associated Press, 2013), however Welch saw the situation differently.
"'When I posted this, I didn't represent Applebee's in a bad light,'" she said. "'In fact, I didn't represent them at all. I did my best to protect the identity of all parties involved. I didn't break any specific guidelines in the company handbook -- I checked'" (Morran, 2013).
Applebees responded publicly to the controversy on Facebook with a status stating "We wish this situation hadn't happened." What appeared to be an acceptable use of damage control turned sour later that night when an Applebee's representative began replying to critical comments from the brand's account with long-winded excuses about the situation. In short, the company did not handle the situation well.
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| via R.L. Stollar |
It's impossible to say, as someone outside of the company, whether or not Welch truly violated Applebee's' social media policy, so it is difficult to say whether or not I agree with her termination. There is no question, however, that the situation could have been avoided entirely if Welch had cropped the customer's signature out of the otherwise non-identifying photo.
The NLRD edict most pertinent to this incident is number 9, which says "employers remain entitled to enforce important workplace policies, even in the context of social media," a statute under which "employers can politely suggest that employees use good judgment on social media" (Sharp, 2015).
If I were implementing a social media policy for my organization, I would emphasize confidentiality clauses and entitlement to reinforce important workplace policies. Sharing too much information on a company's trade secrets as an 'off-the-clock' representative of the brand can give competition an unfair advantage. To the latter point, employees should not be able to override standard protective workplace policies just because they are using social media on their personal time. The "right to prohibit sexual harassment, workplace violence and threats of violence, sabotage, and/or abusive and malicious activity" is crucial to a healthy and productive work environment (Halpern, 2012).
When an employee is representing his or her organization directly on social media, I would be careful not to implement overly broad or generic "courtesy clauses," as while they typically attempt to protect the company from legal liability, they often dictate too severely how employees can interact with customers over social media. Social media managers should still appear human even when representing their company from a company handle. I would also be careful to prohibit employee rants. Not only does it reflect poorly upon a company when an employee rants about the brand from their personal social media account, but the damage is magnified when said employee accidentally posts their rant to a company social media account to which they have access (see video below). I think that personal and professional social media policy go hand-in-hand.
References:
Associated Press. (2013, February 1). Applebee's waitress fired for posting customer receipt online. CBS News. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/applebees-waitress-fired-for-posting-customer-comment-online/
Halpern, S. (2012, December 3). When is Your Company's Social Media Policy an Unfair Labor Practice? Recent NLRB Decisions Offer Long-Awaited Guidance for Employers | The National Law Review. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/when-your-company-s-social-media-policy-unfair-labor-practice-recent-nlrb-decisions-
Sharp, M. (2015, February 24). The National Labor Relations Act and workplace social media policies. Social Media Strategies & Tactics. Retrieved from http://sharpscomi.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-national-labor-relations-act-and.html
Stollar, R.L. (2013, February 2). Applebee's overnight social media meltdown: A photo essay. Overturning Tables. Retrieved from https://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/applebees-overnight-social-media-meltdown-a-photo-essay/
Brenna, I think you summed up this weeks discussion perfectly with the Parks and Recreation video! Nice job. There are so many mistakes made by employees that seem like humorous or insignificant “rants.” Sometimes it does seem that it has to be a joke!
ReplyDeleteThe Applebee’s example is a great example to utilize this week in expressing number 9 in the most important edicts of the National Labor Relations Board. In this particular case, the employee publicly shared a receipt that clearly showed the pastor’s name and violated the customer’s right to privacy, which the president of Applebee’s identified as a violation of company’s social media policy (Associated Press, 2013). The NLRB states, “an employer can suggest that they (employees) should exercise good judgment and caution employees that if their conduct violates the rights of other employees or third parties, it may result in liability to these individuals” (Halpern, 2012). Since the NLRB says this is a “suggestion” and not a mandate, it’s hard to determine if the Applebee’s policy was written as such and could be misconstrued by the interpreter. The way I see it, good judgment on my part may not be equivalent to good another’s good judgment. However, if company policy (social media or otherwise) says that you can’t share receipts with third parties, Welch was clearly in violation.
As David Meerman Scott (2011) stated, “Employees do silly things” (p. 91). Scott suggested, “Rather than focus on putting guidelines on blogs and other social media like Facebook and Twitter (the technology), it is better to focus on guiding the way people behave” (p. 92). This goes along the lines of “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.” I guess an organization’s approach will be determined by its culture, how much they are willing to invest in their employees, and how much risk their legal team will allow.
Associated Press. (2013, February 1). Applebee's waitress fired for posting customer receipt online. CBS News. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/applebees-waitress-fired-for-posting-customer-comment-online/
Halpern, S. (2012, December 3). When is Your Company's Social Media Policy an Unfair Labor Practice? Recent NLRB Decisions Offer Long-Awaited Guidance for Employers | The National Law Review. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/when-your-company-s-social-media-policy-unfair-labor-practice-recent-nlrb-decisions-
Scott, D. M. (2013). The new rules of marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, & viral marketing to reach buyers directly (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Thanks, Mandy. I like the Scott quotation you chose, "Employees do silly things," and I think it really sums up the entire issue of employee behavior on social media. I agree that an organization's approach to social media policy will be determined by its culture. It may actually say a lot about an organization and its hiring selection if it tends to have a recurring issue with employees making inappropriate use of social media.
DeleteThanks for the post. You provide a really solid analysis of a reoccurring issue that is happening all over the world. I'm afraid that companies and employees are going to continue to make the same mistakes on social media and the result will be less interaction. The idea of social media is to engage in honest interaction with a global audience. If employees are concerned about expressing their opinions they will start to drift away from social media.
ReplyDeleteA clear set of guidelines indicating proper social media use is the best way forward. Although, the guidelines should be about things not to do and things to do, it should also include how the guidelines are meant to protect the company and employees.
Thanks for reading, Loren. I agree that social media policies should explain how the guidelines are meant to protect both the company and its employees. I think often times employees will act so carelessly on social media because they do not understand the repercussions of their actions, not because they do not care about them.
DeleteThis is a great example, nicely done Brenna! It is an entirely different world nowadays in that employees who are off the clock can still do things that impact their jobs. That wasn't the case all that long ago and companies have scrambled and struggled with how best to enforce workplace policies around the clock. I'm wondering how much "training" Applebee's employees would possibly be subjected to with regards to policies surrounding their personal social media usage outside of the job. I'm guessing very little, so I applaud the waitress for making an effort to follow the guidelines. I don't necessarily agree with the company's decision to fire her and say that they had "no choice but to do so". That seems like a PR move to show that they removed the "problem".
ReplyDeleteThe Parks and Rec video is classic. A great representation of the reality we now face and will continue to face as long as social networks exist.
Thanks for your reply, Russ. You make a great point about the likely lack of training the waitress received in regards to social media policy. I doubt that anyone outside of the corporate office would seriously consider such a thing before acting, so it definitely speaks well of the waitress that she checked her handbook before posting.
DeleteHi Brenna,
ReplyDeleteThe Applebee's example you provide is one that relates perfectly to this week's readings. It's also not the only such case of wait staff posting receipts and having it backfire. This reminded me of the story of a lesbian waitress who, in her attempt to spread awareness of anti-gay sentiments, fabricated a story that patrons left her no tip, but instead left a message on the receipt that said, "Sorry, I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life," (Fields & Mohney, 2013). After a couple reportedly came forward with a matching bill, and bank statement that showed they left an $18 tip on a $93 bill, former friends of the waitress also came forward claiming that she was an impulsive liar. The restaurant in this case, Gallop Asian Bistro, did the same as Applebee's in your example, and terminated the waitress' employment. However, that was not the only damage control that had to be done. A Facebook group for the gay advocacy site Have a Gay Day had posted the story to its wall (before it had been debunked) and had received donations for the waitress. These had to be returned and redactions had to be made (Fields & Mohney, 2013). Stories like these show just how important it can be to have a proper social media policy in place, and just how quickly social media can allow fabricated stories to spread.
Source
Fields, L., & Mohney, G. (2013, December 8). Waitress in Anti-Gay Tipping Scandal No Longer At Restaurant - ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/US/waitress-anti-gay-tipping-scandal-longer-restaurant/story?id=21140626
Thanks for sharing that example, Jeff. That is very similar to the Applebee's situation, but somewhat opposite as it was the waitress who was in the wrong as opposed to the customer (not to say the customer in the Applebee's situation didn't have a right to be angry that her personal information was shared without her permission). But this is also a great example of how quickly social media can make headlines and how quick some news sources are to pick up stories from social media activity without fact checking first. Social media makes it easy for a news outlet to get the first story, but it is risky as in situations like this when the media jumps to conclusions without proof of truth.
DeleteHi Brenna,
ReplyDeleteWhat stuck with me most was when you said how personal and professional social networking should go hand in hand. I agree completely, and I think that this is something that most companies don't emphasize enough. I believe that as an employee of an organization, you have to think of yourself as an ambassador of that organization. In this day and age, people are even more associated with their companies that they work for because of social media. There is an association that happens for people with their employers, and like it or not you have to be conscious of that when posting on social media.
Thanks for a great post!
Allie
Thanks, Allie. I agree that whether employees like it or not, they become ambassadors of their organizations once they are employed in the social media age. I think if more employees understood this, we would see far fewer social media gaffes and fewer people being fired for oversharing or inappropriately representing their employer.
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