First Reference Talks

Can employers protect business contacts acquired by employees’ use of social media?

Friday, July 15th, 2011

Consider this: you have encouraged your employee to use online social media during work time to build professional contacts to grow your business. The employee goes ahead and invests time during the workday visiting sites like Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. This strategy proves to be positive; the contacts have been part of the business growth you have experienced. Then, your employee wants to leave the company and move on to another job. Can you, as the employer, ask for the contact information the employee accumulated during his or her employment?

Tags: business opportunities, Emails, employment contract, employment law, employment relationship, facebook, in the course of employment, LinkedIn, networking, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, personal versus work, professional contacts, restrictive covenants, social media, social media portability, social media sites, social networking, twitter, work-related
Posted in Employee Relations, Human Resources, Internal Controls | Make a Comment »

beansTalk – a social network for bean counters

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

If you think Facebook is too personal and LinkedIn too general, maybe beansTalk is the social network for you—if you’re an accounting professional, that is.

Tags: accounting, accounting professionals, blogs, bookkeeping, facebook, financial planning, Google, IFRS, International Financial Reporting Standards, LinkedIn, Reporting, social media, social networking, tax, tax compliance
Posted in Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Internal Controls | 3 Comments »

Social networking and Internet abuse in the workplace – Learn the latest

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

We’ve written plenty on First Reference Talks about the significant effects—both negative and positive—that online social networking can have on workplaces. Whether its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, news or entertainment blogs or what-have-you, employees are using social media, and increasingly they’re doing it on your time. Employers should be aware of the potential value they can derive from social media, as well as the potential risks.

Tags: blogs, communication, defamation, employment law, facebook, harassment, Internet, internet policies, LinkedIn, morale, Network Security, Ontario Employment Law Conference, performance management, productivity, security, social media, social networking, social networking policies, Stringer Brisbin Humphrey, termination, time theft, twitter, YouTube
Posted in Conferences, Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Social media = time management? (Part 2)

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Social media are new, and their value is not entirely clear, especially to businesses that are doing just fine as they are, thank you very much. Heck, it’s even possible that blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other Web 2.0 and social networking services will turn out to be passing fads, in which case, maybe companies that ignore them will have the last laugh on the matter. I don’t know about that, but I will say this: the generation that grew up on the Internet and began to enter the labour market over the last decade is unlikely to want to shift to a way of doing things that doesn’t involve the Internet and its associated applications and gadgets. And their children—well, who can say how connected they’ll be. It would take an extremely authoritarian approach to return to the workplace of our parents, and likely an approach that looks backward rather than ahead. But enough of prediction, let’s talk about some interesting stuff!

Tags: employment standards, facebook, Generation Y, hours of work, LinkedIn, productivity, social media, social networking, twitter, web 2.0
Posted in Human Resources, Internal Controls, IT, Privacy and Security, Privacy and Security | Make a Comment »

Is social media recruiting a discrimination land mine?

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Here’s a question about an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant:

By using social networking sites—such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn—to search for and recruit employees, are employers discriminating against groups that are less likely to use those services?

Tags: canadian employment law, discrimination, employment, facebook, hiring, human rights, LinkedIn, recruiting, social, social media, social networking, twitter
Posted in Human Resources, Human Rights, Recruiting and Hiring | 3 Comments »