SOCIAL MEDIA OWNERSHIP ISSUES

The embracing of social media in America is causing some interesting transitional issues in the workplace, especially where lines are blurred between work and personal activities.

Be aware that when it comes to LinkedIn, it is possible that your employer could try to claim ownership of some of your contacts and tell you to delete them when you leave your job. This is especially true where contact lists are commercially sensitive, such as in professional services or recruiting. In the past, a network of contacts may have been considered the parallel of a confidential client list. When employees left, they simply would not have access to client databases; however LinkedIn networks change this. Some labor lawyers also say that your employer could also tell you to remove any reference on LinkedIn that you are looking for work elsewhere (such as clicking on "Interested in Career Opportunities").

One possible future trend would be negotiating LinkedIn information in severance packages, where a person's package may be bigger if they are willing to make certain concessions.

Although rare, there have been cases of employees terminated for making negative comments about employers on LinkedIn. Sometimes, too, people mistakenly copy over virtually all information from their resume directly to LinkedIn. It's critical to carefully review this information to consider how your employer would perceive it if read and make changes accordingly before transferring information over.

Facebook recently and very publicly condemned the growing trend among employers to ask job applicants and existing employees for their Facebook password in conducting background, security, and other types of checks.

One thing is for certain is that legal challenges will be brought to ultimately determine workplace issues relating to LinkedIn and other social media sites.