By Karen Abrams, MBA
Co-Founder, STEMGuyana
Public and private organizations in Guyana are learning that the best cure for exposure on social media is transparency and professionalism.
In today’s workplace, technological advances have empowered employees and citizens in a way previously unseen. To be clear, networks for maintaining secrets have always been present in society but the size of these networks and the potential influence of them have been largely limited by fear of consequences and the lack of tools with which to disseminate the information. Additionally, the price of revealing the secret behaviours of the very powerful has always been steep and even more so in smaller societies where the powerful control jobs, promotions, salaries and livelihoods. Historically, this confluence of variables has worked well to protect the bad behaviours of the connected and powerful, causing many to become even more emboldened, while promoting an unspoken culture of abuse in many organizations, both public and private. Employees and citizens have learned over the years to whisper their pains or suffer in silence.
All over the world however, we are witnessing a disruption of this entrenched pattern of abuse of power. Recently in the US, former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson settled sexual harassment allegations against the network’s ousted chairman and co-founder, Roger Ailes, and has received a $20 million USD payment and a public apology from its parent company, 21st Century Fox. Carlson, the former host of “Fox and Friends,” sued Ailes on July 6, claiming that she was demoted and eventually let go from Fox after she refused his sexual advances. Although Ailes has repeatedly denied the allegations, it was widely reported that Carlson recorded many of his lecherous advancements on her iPhone. No doubt, it was this variable that lead to the swift settlement and to Ailes’ demise.
Recently in Guyana, there have been many recent examples of leaders, both in the public and private sectors who have been embarrassed, had their reputations tarnished, forced to apologize or otherwise sanctioned for behaviours that once passed for acceptable by employees and citizens who felt powerless to seek redress. Technology has played a powerful role in causing a disruption of the status quo in Guyana and leaders are struggling to come to grips with the idea that they are essentially operating under a microscope. Access to social media via affordable devices and internet connections, offer citizens access to a huge international circle of contacts; many of whom live outside the sphere of local fear and influence, with whom they can communicate in near real time. In the past where citizens were forced to satisfy themselves by calling and complaining to their often powerless best friend, who would give them comfort but little else, they now are plugged into a large and vocal community of advisors; emboldened, learned, and engaged. No longer are these issues inconsequential, the repercussions for workplace abuses can be long-lasting and often deleterious to organizational leaders.
Leaders in Guyana must adjust to the new communication realities. Many leaders will create organizational policies in attempts to control social media use and behaviours and to some extent, that can be effective as it specifically relates to the workplace. Proskauer’s 2013/2014 “Social Media in the Workplace Around the World Survey” found that 80 percent of companies now have social media policies, and 70 percent of organizations with such policies had taken disciplinary action against an employee for violating their policies. It is important to note however, that while it is acceptable for employers to create policies that, for example forbid employees from using company equipment to access social media during work hours or that forbid employees from sharing confidential company information online, it will be more difficult for employers to attempt to legislate ‘good behavior’ especially during off-hours. Employers must be aware that policies that are too restrictive or that might impinge on a citizen’s democratic freedom of expression, run the risk of being challenged in court.
The beautiful irony of social media is that while applications such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Yelp, Flickr, Snapchat, Instagram, and WordPress, present great opportunities for businesses in the areas of public relations, internal and external communications, recruiting, organizational learning and collaboration, and more, they can cause tremendous harm to a company’s reputation and therefore bottom line if managers are unprofessional or abusive with employees. In addition, companies may find themselves exposed to legal action if for example, employees use social media to disseminate rumors, gossip, and offensive false statements about co-workers and supervisors, if employees reveal, either inadvertently or intentionally, proprietary or confidential information on a blog or social networking site, or if employees transmit sexually explicit or offensive materials from the office. The potential legal exposure for employers is worth the engagement of legal counsel to help identify a company’s potential risk and put in place a policy to protect both company and employees.
Even with the disruption in the internal communication status quo in public and private organizations, the new world of near instant communication has been an overall net gain for employers. However, organizational leaders must take steps today to adjust to their new reality by hiring and training quality and professional citizens and by insisting that the workplace be free from bias, abuse, fear and other unprofessional behaviours. Organizational heads must themselves lead their employees by example. It is important to note that organizations have always paid lip service to these ideals, but today there are many technology tools in place to hold them accountable. If organizations in Guyana opt for transparency, fairness and professionalism in hiring, management and promotions in the workplace, then they have nothing to fear from the new world of social media communication.
