I have seen a few articles about this issue as the ability for people to broadcast their opinions and exploits is magnified due to the rising importance of social media. A provocative column by Christopher Caldwell a while ago in the FT, for example, asked whether a Washington Post reporter blogging in a personal capacity was still representing his newspaper and, therefore, could be punished for writing things detrimental to his reputation as an impartial reporter, or whether it was none of his employer’s business what he wrote (‘Mistweeted and Misunderstood,’ September 3, 2010).
In this light, consider the articles in the two urls below that appeared in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal on the same day last week. The first article features firms’ increasing desire to limit the number of employees who smoke – citing lost productivity and increased health costs as motivating factors:
“More hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living. … The new rules essentially treat cigarettes like an illegal narcotic. Applications now explicitly warn of ''tobacco-free hiring,'' job seekers must submit to urine tests for nicotine and new employees caught smoking face termination.”
Contrast this with Google’s hands-off approach to its employee, Wael Ghonim (Google’s Mideast regional marketing executive), who played a central role in starting the recent protests in Egypt that ended up over-throwing the regime:
“Mr. Ghonim is on leave during his activism in Egypt and is acting on his own, not as an agent of the company. … What employees do on their own time is their own private matter, not something the company should govern, and therefore not something the company is concerned about.”
While I can appreciate the potential brand risk posed by an employee who is pursuing activities privately that potentially threaten the business interests of a firm (to lesser or greater extents), it is also true that firms now attempt to regulate employees’ lives in ways that would have been unthinkable a short time ago.
I am not sure what the best answer is here, but it is something to which the socially responsible firm will increasingly need to be sensitive. As Caldwell concludes:
“The internet and the new media are commonly described as a liberating, individualising force. In many respects, though, they are replacing informal relationships with surveilled ones. Mr Wise was wrong to put up his phoney tweets. The Post was within its rights to discipline him. But it is hard not to worry about the principles laid down in the process of doing so. The net result of the internet may be to invite the boss into what used to be the stronghold of one’s private life.”
Take care
David
Instructor Teaching Site: http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/
Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans To Smoker Ban
By A. G. SULZBERGER; Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.
1287 words
11 February 2011
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
1
How to Handle Employee Activism: Google Tiptoes Around Cairo's Hero
By John Bussey
824 words
11 February 2011
The Wall Street Journal
B1
