Human Resource Materials Archives

If it Can Happen to Amazon, it Can Happen To You

Social Media: The Industry Disrupter

Social media continues to be a major business disrupter. For the last decade most companies and brands have been working like crazy to figure it all out. From social media marketing to social hiring reports. How does it all work?

Which platform should we use to market? What is the ROI? How can we keep track of our online reputation? The waters get murky when it comes to hiring employees and screening their social accounts. Yet, so many HR professionals continue to conduct unethical searches and find themselves in compromising situations. Should we screen employees social media prior to hiring? How is that different from the background checks were already conducting?

Just last week it was reported that an Amazon employee was fired for reporting that her supervisor instructed her to “scour social media on applicants to determine race and gender. ” She did not feel this was the correct way to do this, and notified management. She was terminated. The ex-employee has since then filed a lawsuit against Amazon for wrongful termination among other things.

Many times we hear HR executives say that they do check social media on applicants and don’t give it too much thought as to the legality of it all. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), HR execs recruit candidates for specific jobs using social media, up from 56 percent in 2011 and 34 percent in 2008. Using this as a recruitment strategy is different than using it to determine employment, however.

The Right Way to Conduct Social Media Background Checks

This varies from state to state, however for the most part be aware of the following red flags that are allowed under FCRA compliance:

Racist, Sexist, or Discriminatory Behavior
Sexually Explicit Material
Threats or Acts of Violence
Potentially Illegal Activity

Developing a social media policy for your company is a great first step. This way everyone is on the same page when it comes to remaining fair to all applicants.

Never ask for passwords.

Include this as part of your background check policy and clearly state it for all applicants to see and agree to.

Use an outside agency.

Reputation management and workplace safety are just two of the three top reasons companies seek out social media background checks.

At eChatter we use software that is FCRA compliant. Results generated by our staff are in line with federal and state specific laws. However, we don’t stop there. Avoid a PR nightmare by monitoring social media once employees are hired, to protect employees from toxic behavior in the workplace. What starts at the office, sometimes spills into social media and vise versa.
Human Resource Social Media Hiring Scan

OSINT Research: The Devil’s in the Details

For those unfamiliar with the term OSINT Research, it is explained this way by Wikipedia

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is the collection and analysis of information that is gathered from public, or open, sources.^[2] OSINT is primarily used in national security, law enforcement, and business intelligence functions and is of value to analysts who use non-sensitive intelligence in answering classified, unclassified, or proprietary intelligence requirements across the previous intelligence disciplines.

OSINT sources can be divided up into six different categories of information flow

Media, print newspapers, magazines, radio, and television from across and between countries.
Internet, online publications, blogs, discussion groups, citizen media (i.e. – cell phone videos, and user created content), YouTube, and other social media websites (i.e. – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). This source also outpaces a variety of other sources due to its timeliness and ease of access.
Public Government Data, public government reports, budgets, hearings, telephone directories, press conferences, websites, and speeches. Although this source comes from an official source they are publicly accessible and may be used openly and freely.
Professional and Academic Publications, information acquired from journals, conferences, symposia, academic papers, dissertations, and theses.
Commercial Data, commercial imagery, financial and industrial assessments, and databases.
Grey literature, technical reports, preprints, patents, working papers, business documents, unpublished works, and newsletters.

OSINT Resources Reveal the Details From the Deep Web

Many times our clients want to better understand the difference between a social media scan and a deep web scan. Taking a close look at the image above explains a lot and kind of surprises most people in terms of the data on the web that is openly available.

eChatter Case Study Examples of Deep Web Details

Recently, we were trying to find out whether a POI (person of interest) was married. He had no Facebook clues other than he was in a relationship. After conducting a deep web scan we found a local newspaper article in which he was named along with “his wife”. The wife chose to keep her maiden name.
A deep scan was ordered by a client to determine what happened to a deceased person’s body. We found an association letter that was published online indicating the person was cremated and buried at sea.
A client needed to know if their POI had any business affiliations that wasn’t disclosed in a divorce settlement. After a deep scan was conducted, we located quite a few businesses tied to the POI.

Does it always work out this way? Not at all. Mainly because some people are much better at hiding this than others or because they were advised to delete everything online by advice of counsel. However, these are the kind of details OSINT research is all about. You will not find this in a Google search.

There is a Rumor Going Around…

In any work environment there is bound to be a whole bunch of dynamics around the office. Too many type A’s in the office could be quite exhausting for example. It takes skill to navigate it all with the help of a good HR department. This is however, very understandable and common to most people.

But what happens when things turn ugly at work? What if someone has it in for a person or even a group of people? Workplace conflict is a very real issue and one that should not be taken lightly. With the mental health issues we currently have in our country, employees should be trained in what to look for and have a safe place in which they can voice their concerns. In fact, many work places are taking a proactive approach by conducting workshops on this topic to teach employees what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Workplace Policy

Developing a workplace policy like the one below is helpful and can be especially important should any legal issues come up.

Under federal law and Department of Labor (DOL) policy, harassment by DOL employees of DOL employees based on race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity and pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, or parental status is prohibited. The Department of Labor does not permit harassing conduct by anyone in the workplace, including contractors.
Taken from the DOL website

Posting it in the lunch room or in a public area would be a great first step. But it does take much more effort on the part of management and prevention is key. Years ago, when a company had a problem within their organization, it pretty much stayed there. Not true anymore, thanks to social media.

Social Media’s Role

What is social media’s role in all of this? Does an employer have the right to monitor employees social media? Can it be cause for dismissal? More and more the answer is yes because it can be a red flag alert that will stop a publicity nightmare down the road.

Where there is smoke there is fire. Social media can be a red flag to other things that may be happening within a department. This was true of a Seattle Officer who showed signs of of violent tendencies on and off social media.

The Seattle Officer lost his job over a collection of social media posts. The post became public by placing a blurb about it on the Office of Police Accountability’s website. The officer included some pretty rough comments about illegal immigration, with an emphasis on endorsing violence. The department issued this statement:

“The department’s ability to fulfill its public safety duties depends on communities believing that officers will treat them equally and with dignity, regardless of their immigration status,” Best concluded. “Your comments suggest that you will not do so. They could have substantial negative consequences to the relationship between members of the Department and those that we serve and showed exceeding poor judgment.”

Additionally, the officer was suspended for escalating another incident to the point where a fellow officer feared for their safety.

As an employee, would you feel more safe knowing your employer was being proactive? When does safety in the workplace trump privacy? Please share your thoughts…

Why Is HR Scared of Social Media Background Checks?

We’ve talked to many HR professionals and Private Investigators who work with clients for employment purposes. What we hear most often is that they would love to include social and online research as part of their background check but are afraid to do so. They focus on what they hear in mainstream media – social media/online background checks are inviting a lawsuit, and companies don’t want to take a risk or be liable should a disgruntled candidate argue their case for discrimination, etc.

What many in the industry don’t know is that there are full on social media/online research services available, but those are not geared toward HR. In fact, there is a separate program designed specifically for pre-employment background checks.

This social/online research focuses on only negative content in relation to very specific topics, such as

Racist, Sexist, or Discriminatory Behavior
Sexually Explicit Material
Threats or Acts of Violence
Potentially Illegal Activity

It also complies with FCRA guidelines, which is critical. As HR professionals know, there are many aspects of an individual’s life that absolutely cannot be factored into the decision-making process, otherwise known as protected classes. Some examples include gender, marital status, religious affiliation, race, and parental status. It gets tricky because there are some factors that are state specific as far as not being allowed to be seen/considered as part of the hiring process. The laws can get further muddied for nationwide companies who are hiring outside of the state they are hiring employees in – at this point, which set of state specific laws apply?

Given all of the intricacies of pre-employment screening, it’s no wonder HR departments are very slow to adopt social media/online research as part of their decision-making process.

eChatter has developed a scan just for this industry/area of need. The pre-employment social/online research services take every factor into consideration to make sure that the clients we work for stay compliant on a federal and state level. Furthermore, we ensure that you never see what you shouldn’t see by redacting the information – the report turns up only relevant content that can be portrayed as negative and a detriment to the person’s employment with your company. When important content is identified, the report will only show those pieces of content. If nothing is found that falls into what can be legally obtained/considered when making hiring decisions, a “no pertinent information found” report is filed, meaning there is nothing of concern regarding the candidate.

With these protections in place, HR professionals can easily include social media and online content as part of their candidate screening. It’s as simple as filling out a form, providing as much information about an individual as in know – in the case of pre-employment scans, submitting the candidate’s resume is a great help – and letting eChatter take care of the rest, from conducting the research to keeping the layers of protection in place.

Want to know about using social/online content for pre-employment screening? Feel free to take a look at our website or send us an email for more information. We’re happy to answer any questions and show you how social/online research can be a valuable piece in the hiring process.

Teachers and Social Media

Teachers, just like students, have to be careful about what they post on social media. With the prevalence of technology everywhere you turn, an innocent status update or tweet can cause major damage if interpreted the wrong way.

Many teachers have been fired for Facebook and Instagram posts, tweets, and other social media posts. A teacher’s social media content can impact a school’s reputation, and many cases exist of a teacher being fired for posting provocative content. Unless sharing an opinion on union activity or working conditions, the First Amendment does not protect teachers. Protections exist within the classroom, but online platforms have proven vulnerable.

A suburban Chicago teacher is on leave due to a social media post that used explicit language in reference to her fifth-grade students. She complains about her fifth-grade class in a very vulgar way, which many parents and students feel is inexcusable.

“It is so sad that we are trusting these teachers with our kids, to get an education, thinking they are loving our kids putting them on the right path,” Nikita Moss said.

According to East Aurora school district website, the superintendent met with the employee upon learning of her post and placed her on administrative leave until further notice. “Be assured that we take this matter very seriously,” the district said in a statement. “We are certain that the language used does not reflect the professionalism and attitudes of District 131 teachers and staff, who care deeply for children and work hard each day to build positive relationships with students.”

So what should teachers do? What are the legal guidelines here?

First of all, check to see if your school district has a technology and social media policy. If so, read it and follow it to the letter. Gwyneth Jones, International Ed Tech keynote speaker, author of the award-winning Daring Librarian blog, and the teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School in Howard County, MD, says “I’m so proud that my district has had a “Responsible Use of Technology and Social Media Policy” since 2002 and has updated it every three years.” She shared the most important portion:

“Any postings by employees will not reference, link or contain: Statements that could be viewed as malicious, obscene, threatening or intimidating; that disparage students, employees, parents or community members; or that could be viewed as harassment or bullying.”

According to Anthony Clark, a nine-year teaching veteran and leader of the Suburban Unity Alliance in Chicago, teachers should always use social media with the best interest of their students in mind. Because the rules are often ambiguous and frequently broken, teachers must be prepared for consequences when addressing issues related to their school. For teachers who want to extend their lessons to social media, they very well might find a unique platform for mentorship, but they also should be prepared to sacrifice their jobs and reputation if a scandal breaks out.

Clark realizes that not every teacher will want to adopt his mentorship approach, and he’s fine with that. But he does feel that every teacher has the responsibility to at least be aware of and up to date on the newest trends in social media. “Schools would benefit from allowing and encouraging and providing some level of [social media] training for teachers that find it valuable to build relationships,” Clark said. “We shouldn’t be afraid of it because we can’t control it.”

Sure, teachers might sometimes overreach and place themselves in controversies without knowing all the facts. But many times, teachers have a unique understanding of the issues surrounding young people. They might have the solution in their back pocket. The only way to contribute to the discussion in many situations is social media. We should respect the voice of teachers and allow them the freedom to speak on the issues that are central to future generations.

What’s the best advice for teachers?

If you must use social media, include disclaimers that note that your speech is your personal opinion and not related to your employment. Also, avoid speaking about work-related matters unless the speech is protected as discussion related to working conditions and collective bargaining.