Hot on the heels of our last blog looking at the perils of employees using social media comes an incident of an employee being sacked for posting defamatory comments about their employer on Facebook.
An employee of an Apple store had written derogatory comments about Apple on his Facebook page, which were then passed to his boss by a Facebook “friend” and co worker.
He was dismissed for gross misconduct.
He bought a claim of unfair dismissal, which failed because Apple had such clear policies around the use of social media. As brand and image is so central to Apple’s success, they particularly made it clear that any derogatory remarks that damaged the brand would not be tolerated.
What Apple also did was to make sure that their policies weren’t just handed out in a document, but were also made part of the induction programme. This crystal clear communication ensured Apple could defend and protect their commercial reputation in this situation.
Once again, the lessons are
- have a clear social media policy (see our last blog for some guidance as to what to include)
- communicate it to your employees and make sure they understand it
- make sure managers are confident in dealing with breaches of any policy
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