Updating a blog, forwarding an e-mail, posting on Facebook, sending out a tweet, uploading to YouTube — the number of different ways in which employees can rapidly communicate and disseminate information electronically has exploded in the last 10 years. It’s enough to make an employer’s head spin. Today’s quiet conversation with an employee in order to provide ‘‘constructive feedback’’ can lead to tomorrow’s ‘‘most read’’ blog entry or ‘‘most shared’’ video created by that employee in retaliation. Today’s ‘‘joking’’ e-mails can be reproduced tomorrow, verbatim, in a statement of claim where they inevitably seem considerably less funny. And too often an employer will discover the blog or video only after it has (perhaps literally) circled the globe or will learn of the particular e-mails only when served with the lawsuit. By this time, damage control may be extremely difficult, leaving an employer with not only unwelcome publicity  or media attention, but possibly also with such unpalatable tasks as addressing the anger, hurt, and criticism coming from its other employers are left with no option but to do the best they can with damage control and then hunker down and ride out the storm.

Republished with permission.

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