Social media presents opportunity, pitfalls

Changes in health care laws and labor relations will affect businesses dramatically next year, but many human resources managers at a Providence Business News-sponsored Employment Trends 2013 summit said they consider social media a contender for a top spot on the list of concerns.
“If you don’t participate [in marketing], you’re missing the boat,” National Lumber Director of Human Resources Maria Fratiello said at the Dec. 13 summit at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Providence Warwick. “But if you do participate, you’re kind of setting yourself up” to pay close attention to issues involving employee use, she said after the summit.
Mansfield, Mass.-based National Lumber, which has a location in Warwick, is going full-speed ahead using social media for marketing, Fratiello said.
“We’re tweeting information to our customers and we have new products on Facebook and Twitter,” said Fratiello, who was among 75 human resource professionals and other business leaders at the conference.
Those are common benefits of social media that companies are increasingly taking advantage of. But audience members were briefed on complex issues companies face as social media becomes a daily consideration and creates a lot of gray areas.
“The best practice is not to screen potential job candidates using Google or Facebook, because you might unwittingly discriminate, for instance, against some people who are older or poor and not using social media or don’t have access to a computer,” said Brian Lamoureux, a partner in Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West.
“Caution” is the guiding principle for human resources professionals using social media, said Lamoureux, who shut down his Facebook account.
“I’m more concerned about my privacy than connecting with people I don’t care about,” Lamoureux said, noting his concern about information from Facebook collected by the marketing firm Datalogix.
Lamoureux said deactivating a Facebook account doesn’t delete it. Additional steps are required. Then there’s the treacherous territory created by speaking out online, particularly about managers or other work-related issues.
“Insubordination is a fireable offense,” Lamoureux said. He advised human resources managers to put social media policy in the employee handbook and require that it be signed.
It’s best if employees have separate personal and professional social media accounts, he said.
On other trends, employers face dramatic changes in health care as they prepare in 2013 for the requirements of the Affordable Care Act that go into effect in 2014.
“We have to stay current. It’s an ongoing education to keep up with health care changes,” said Matthew Murphy. He’s human resources director for the Bristol-based nonprofit Living in Fulfilling Environments (L.I.F.E. Inc.), which has 190 employees and works with people with developmental disabilities.
Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange Director Christine Ferguson said businesses will get more detailed information in the next three to four months about options on the requirement for health coverage for everyone.
“We’re going to play the role of advocate for small business,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson said the exchange is negotiating with Rhode Island health-insurance carriers for the best plans and prices.
Major questions are also likely to arise with trends in labor relations, said Bill O’Gara, a principal with Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West.
O’Gara said one issue employers must be alert to is “protected concerted activity.”
According to the National Labor Relations Board website, that is: “the law we enforce that gives employees the right to act together to try to improve their pay and working conditions or fix job-related problems, even if they aren’t in a union. If employees are fired, suspended or otherwise penalized for taking part in protected group activity, the National Labor Relations Board will fight to restore what was unlawfully taken away.”
“These are not easy issues to sort out,” said O’Gara. •

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