If I said to you ‘HMV Twitter account’ then I suspect that many of you will think about the #HMVXFactorFiring tweets that appeared in the HMV timeline on 31st January 2013.
Poppy Rose, an intern at HMV who had assumed responsibility of the Twitter and Facebook accounts of the company, decided to go public via the medium of Twitter to let the company’s 65,000 followers know what was going on in head office that day, i.e. 60 people were getting fired.
There are two HR lessons to be learned from this very public display of staff dissatisfaction:
- The first is that if you let staff post to social media accounts on behalf of the company, then you must ensure that you or someone senior in the company has control of who does this. HMV appear not to have done this, and in one particular tweet, Poppy Rose stated that the Marketing Director was asking, “How do I shut down Twitter?” This is not exactly good PR.
- The second lesson is that some people will want to vent their feelings about issues at work through the medium of social media. They may do this on their personal Facebook page or Twitter account. Nevertheless they are responsible for what they write and if it comes to your attention that they have said unfavourable things about you or your business then you can deal with it as a disciplinary matter if it is brought to your attention.
Humans are emotional and social creatures and it is only natural when people have particularly strong feelings about something that they want to share them with others. They could do this via the telephone or face to face but increasingly they are turning to social media with the result that their views are instantly out there in the ether for the world to see.
This can be potentially damaging for your company if your reputation is harmed and the employee may find themselves in trouble if you are made aware of their actions.
To ensure that all employees know what they can and cannot say on social media all businesses, however large or small, should have a social media policy in place. If employees know the boundaries they will be less inclined to post information which will cause them or your business harm.
Poppy Rose took to her personal Twitter account later that day to explain that she was trying to make a point about social media being a powerful tool that had been relatively ignored by the bosses at HMV.
Poppy Rose’s tweets were deleted from the account, but not before many screen shots were taken of them which resulted in national media coverage of the story. The press had their story before HMV could react.
Employers should ensure that they have systems in place to limit the damage caused by inappropriate use of social media and employees should be made aware of what is and is not acceptable behaviour.
This case shows that social media is a powerful communications medium and it needs to be managed by employers and treated with caution by employees. The consequences of not doing so can cause problems for all concerned.
With the right HR advice, you can ensure minimal distress for you and your employees. You know it makes sense.