The Peninsula Ireland Blog held their first webinar this morning on Social Media and Harassment, and the feedback received has been very positive. The webinar lasted close to 40 minutes and we had a number of questions to answer, not all of which were able to be answered at the time but if anyone has a specific query they can email it to [email protected].
Tony Kerins of Peninsula presented the webinar which covered Social Media, usage in Ireland, IT policies, the link to Current Legislation, Personal Harassment, Bullying and Stress Management, with comments and case analysis throughout. A copy of the presentation is available here.
There will be further webinars hosted in the coming weeks and months and your feedback is greatly encourage in terms of any particular topics you would like to see addressed. Below you will see the questions asked and answered as well as those we were unable to answer at the time
If an employee posts a comment about the Company on Facebook can we dismiss?
It will depend on the context, as with the case-law discussed in the presentation it will come down to what did they say, did they explicitly mention the Company , can their comments be linked to the Company and most importantly is there an IT policy in place to specify what they can/cannot do? once this is established and it has become clear that what the employee did was in fact detrimental to the Company, they can look to initiate disciplinary procedures.
Our Employees have been issued with iPads/iPhones for work, do we need to have a policy specifically to cover this?
Yes - Given the fact that the Company has given the tools to the employees to use, there must be guidance and guidelines on acceptable usage and what will/will not be tolerated. Again the importance of an effective IT policy cannot be overstated.
Someone has put up Photos from a work night out, do I need to get people to sign a disclaimer?
There needs to be some sort of guidance in place for employees to know what is acceptable in circumstances. When it may be appropriate to take photos, and when to exercise caution later in the night when people may not wish to have their photo taken. It could be seen as harassment to take photos and put them up where people are not aware of this or a party to this. whether or not it is intentional is irrelevant, and remember as with the Carphone Warehouse case the employer could be held to be vicariously liable as this is a work night out. Maybe ask people to turn off cameras after the first bottle of wine.
What would you do where the employee claims they were "fraped"? e.g. They were not the ones in charge of the account at the time.
Again as we discussed with the Carphone warehouse case, the two employees concerns hacked a person's account and were dismissed for this, but also in a civil matter the Company was held to be vicariously liable. I would ensure that there is a clear policy in place for employees in relation to abuse of social networking, and link this to the disciplinary process in order to define what action may be taken.
What is the difference between Bullying and Harassment?
Bullying is repeated inappropriate behaviour, whereas harassment can be one single instance of behaviour. the important thing to remember is that it is in the "eye of the beholder" and even though harassment is not intended, if the person feels harassed then this could well constitute harassment.
What if an employees stress is not work related?
Even if an employees stress is not related to their work environment, the employer has a duty of care to ensure all staff are looked after and if there is an external influence which is creating problems in work then the employer should seek to address this. This is why an EAP programme is so important and useful as an employer can look to refer employees to the EAP and see that they get the help they need, whilst the employer is exercising their duty of care.
It was mentioned that gender identity is now part of the grounds for discrimination. Does that mean that the list in now increased from 9 to 10 grounds for discrimination?
It has not happened yet, however there is a Bill currently in the Oireachtas which will look to include this in the grounds for discrimination, thereby increasing them to 10.
It was mentioned that a company should communicate its acceptable usage, harassment and bullying policies to its employees. What would be the best method for communicating such policies to employees? (E.g. face-to-face, email, company intranet etc.).Face to face training is always great however it important that there is a paper trail from the Company's point of view to ensure that there is a comeback should there be any disputes. A company intranet is also a great idea as this way all employees will have quick access to policies and should they be updated then the updates can be readily available to employees.
We would like to thank all of those who attended and should you have any comments, feedback or suggestions please email these to [email protected]
