Facebook and today's workplace

Facebook. It’s the go-to social medial platform for millions of working American's and people around the world. But you never know what your “friends” at work are using your Facebook data for. That especially goes for your leadership and management friends at work. The morale of the story is that you need to be careful of who you befriend on facebook. Many supervisors have two facebook accounts, although that is not permitted, so that they can use one to spy on people at work and the other as their official facebook for friends and family.

As as prior Union President with more than 5 years experience representing people in the workplace, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen employees take sick days only to be caught by their supervisor on facebook going to concerts or other major events. I’ve seen supervisors' with two facebook accounts just so that they could spy on their employees. I’ve even seen supervisors who monitor employees on workers compensation so as to catch them doing anything out of the ordinary against their injury restrictions.

Facebook is great if you use it for good; but at work it can be the silent enemy. People who you thought were your friends will turn against you in a heartbeat just to get ahead and feel better about themselves. For example, in one case I witnessed, a co-worker was on workers compensation with a back injury. One of their co-workers caught them on facebook skydiving and turned them into leadership for malingering or faking their back injury. In another case, a co-worker saw their workers compensation co-worker going to a rodeo at night with a back injury even though their restriction were rest. These individuals’ were ultimately severely reprimanded at work or even fired in some cases all because they made the choice originally to befriend employees at work.

It’s not always obvious what your data and posts are being used for. It’s recommended that you use the facebook restriction for friends if you so choose to be friends with people at work. Myself personally, I do not friend people at work or leadership at work because of the aforementioned observations that I’ve witnessed. I recommend if you do choose to befriend people at work that you use the restricted feature so that your friends at work and supervisors can only see your public posts. That said, I also recommend that you be cautious of what you post publicly just so those working in the background against you cannot use the posts for evil.

So friends and readers, be careful who you befriend because it may turn out to be the worst choice you have ever made when your co-workers turn against you.