Hear us out...

The Fine Facebook Line

To maintain professional in the workplace, most managers and employees have traditionally kept their business and personal lives separate. With the introduction and popularity of new technologies such as Facebook, this task has become substantially more difficult. There are several logical reasons why a manager would want to distance themselves from their employees personal lives. Managers absolutely need to keep a 'business first' relationship with their employees, regardless of how close of friends they may be. At the end of the day, friends or not, a manger needs to do their job, by pulling the trigger on a tough decisions that may arise with their employees (such as discipline or termination).

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, once said, "removing people will always be the hardest decision a leader faces. Anyone who enjoys doing it shouldn't be on the payroll, and neither should anyone who can't do it." Being good friends with an employee will make this decision that much more difficult for any manager. This is why some managers avoid getting overly involved with employees lives outside of work.

Additionally, managers must also ensure that their status of an authoritative figure remains intact. The respect that an employee has for a manager can be forever tarnished by that manager having one too many cocktails during a casual after-work happy hour or holiday party. Managers always endure a high risk of others witnessing them acting in an embarrassing manner outside of work, most especially if alcohol is involved.

Employees, on the other hand, have their own reasons to keep their work and personal lives separate. Like managers, employees too must attempt to portray a professional persona, especially during after-business-hour events where managers may be present. An employee who makes a complete fool of themselves outside of work in the presence of a manager, may miss out on various opportunities, including promotions.

All of these aforementioned challenges have only been amplified by Facebook. Facebook allows embarrassing moments from our personal lives to be documented online in a highly transparent, single location. As the Facebook medium becomes more accepted, it can enable non-work related interaction between employer and employee, 24/7. Everyone in the workplace now has to monitor not only their behavior outside of work that may be captured on Facebook, but their own posts and behaviors online! On top of that, both need to monitor the online behavior of their friends to ensure their actions do not produce detrimental consequences. ( For example, posting something embarrassing on their Facebook wall or tagging an embarrassing photo of them. In fact, there is an entire website devoted to embarrassing social blunders on Facebook that can be found here).

This also holds true for job-seeking individuals whose Facebook profile may be investigated by potential employers. Sadly, having a provocative Facebook profile picture may be the difference in landing your dream job or not!

Facebook has done a lot to enhance their privacy settings so that users can dictate who views what on their profile, but business professionals must extra careful of their presence on social media networks.

Hear us out...

The Fine Facebook Line

Archives