For a lesson in how not to do it, HR professionals could do worse than look at the case of a teenage cafe worker whose employer sacked her using Facebook. In what is believed to be the first such incident in the UK, 16 year old schoolgirl Chelsea Taylor found a mis-spelt dismissal letter littered with grammatical errors when she logged onto the social networking site.
Elaine Sutton, the manageress of Cookies – otherwise known as the Lancashire Tea Room – in Leigh, Greater Manchester said that Chelsea was fired from her Saturday job after losing a £10 note while running an errand to buy biscuits for the staff.
According to the Daily Mail, her message read: “hiya Chelsea its Elaine from work. Sorry to send u a message like this but bin tryin to ring u but getting no joy. I had to tell the owner bout u losin that tenner coz obviously the till was down at the end of the day. she wasn’t very pleased at all and despite me trying to persuade her otherwise she said I have to let u go. I’m really sorry. If u call in in the week with your uniform i’ll sort your wages out. Once again I’m really sorry but it’s out of my hands. Elaine xx.”
Taylor’s mother Nicola, who runs a taxi firm, was furious about the situation. “To sack a young worker via Facebook is appalling and heartless – and the way it was written was dreadful. I just can’t believe they didn’t have the decency to tell her over the phone, let alone in person,” she said.
Moreover, to make so many grammatical and spelling errors was “simply disrespectful and sets no example to other employees”, Nicola added.
Chelsea, who is studying for her GCSEs, started the £3.55 per hour 10am to 4pm job earlier this month. She said: “Even if she sent me a text message or something, it would have been better than on Facebook. She didn’t have the guts to tell me face-to-face.”
Cookies declined to comment.
One Response
Organisations need to protect themselves from this type of thing
So we’re entering an age where social media (SM) is changing the way we do business. But rather than stick their head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening, companies should be embracing the use of SM and the serious benefits that it can offer (I’m not going to go into detail here as that’s for another time).
I’m not in any way agreeing with the way in which this was done, but stories such as this ‘facebook sacking’ do not help argue the business case FOR social media. Yes, we need to be aware that in the wrong hands, things can go very wrong. But by putting the right infrastructure in place and explaining to employees what is and isn’t acceptable, the possibilities for positive SM experiences are endless.
For starters here’s a useful resource for social media governance – http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php
Lee
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