Accuracy of Employment Status on Social Networks

The other day I was creating a Company Profile on Linkedin, and noticed that there were some employees showing up who are no longer with the company.

I recently read a Deloitte study that found, unsurprisingly, that “Workers Want Employers Out of Their SocNet Biz“, but in which employees generally agreed that a company’s reputation may be damaged by social media.

It’s generally recognized that social media involves a transfer of control from an organization to individuals, but what if the individuals were former employees? Curious what people thought about this situation, I tweeted:

Does an organization have the right to declare that employees update their employment status on social networks when terminated?

I also posed a question within the “Personnel Policies” and “Blogging” sections on LinkedIn Answers.

Many of the comments I received back focused on the whether or not the organization had the right to demand such a thing after a position had been eliminated. (The general sentiment was that they did not). My thought is that certainly this is not something that can just be requested after the fact, but may possibly be worthy of inclusion in the initial employment agreement. Perhaps this is something the Blog Council has or will address moving forward.

Beyond the fact that there is currently no right for an organization to request someone change their status, I wanted to gain some insight as to whether people felt this type of behavior on the behalf of individuals was acceptable. Moving out of the social networking space, I wanted to know:

what would you do if a former employee used their old biz card as though still employed? is that ok?

To that, the response was overwhelming:

@doylealbee: NOT OK. In fact, I had that happen to me by someone I was interviewing. That’s misrepresentation and it cost them a job.

@lmckeogh: Not OK IMO. Got my own using VistPrint’s free service 1 week after last release. Info on ex-emp. is no longer valid contact data

So I tried to circle the discussion with a final question:

so.. old biz cards not ok, but old biz listings on LinkedIn ok? is that b/c we see soc net as passive, you can “forget to update”?

@lmckeogh: Soc net can be more passive than handing a physical medium. However, from a contact standpoint soc net still valid personally.

@tajmo: Not updating LinkedIn is error of omission; passing old bizcards is error of commission … bad juju. OK to ask to update IMO.

So what’s the verdict? It appears that generally there is the opinion that public profiles should be accurate, but an organization doesn’t have the authority to enforce any such changes. It is difficult to ascertain if any individuals is being deceptive in their representation of their employment status as an online profile is a form of passive promotion.

What’s an organization to do (if anything)? Consider this situation during hiring, and decide if your terms of termination include a clause about updating public information (and a timeframe in which to do so). Or trust that, as Laura Robeson shared over on LinkedIn, that:

If a company is smart about their hiring practices they won’t end up with people that would exploit this gray area in the first place.

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