Is Your Boss Checking Your Facebook Status?

If you think that your place of employment is not checking up on your social networking activity, think again.

Teneros, an online communications and products company, recently released a corporate surveillance software package called Social Sentry (1). For the cost of $2-$8 per employee, Social sentry will monitor employee usage of Facebook and Twitter. Using Social Sentry, an employer is notified every time his or her employee posts something to Facebook or Twitter. Total time spent on these sites is also recorded.

Teneros plans to add YouTube, MySpace, and LinkedIn monitoring very soon (2). Teneros markets Social Sentry as a way for companies to track the release of confidential or embarrassing (e.g., Domino's Pizza) information by employees, as well as to keep tabs on how much time employees are spending on social media.

Many companies already track what their employees, or potential employees, do on Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Harris Interactive, a research firm for CareerBuilder.com, reports that 45% of employers are utilizing various social networks to locate and analyze their job candidates (3). At least 35% of these employers based their final hiring (or non-hiring) decision on what they uncovered about the job candidates. Facebook was the social networking site of choice for investigation, followed by LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Employers also often perused the personal blogs of potential employees.

What dissuaded employers from hiring a job candidate? Inappropriate photos topped the list, followed by posted content about drug or alcohol use. Derogatory comments about one's current or previous employer, coworkers, or clients also spelled doom for the candidate. Some employers even based their hiring decision on whether or not the candidate could communicate effectively.

Social Sentry, while geared exclusively to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, is nothing new. Employee monitoring software has been in existence for some time now. EmployeeMonitoring, for example, offers a software program that allows employers to check on employee downloads, personal e-mail use, IMs and chats. WorkExaminer allows employers to keep tabs on employee Internet use and the amount of time spent on a certain web site.

For bosses who cannot afford the $2-$8 monitoring fee per employee, there are many free software programs available. Simply by inputting employee names into Google Alerts, one can receive daily alerts about employee activities and postings. A personalized app can be created in order to scan Facebook and Twitter. Finally, Yahoo! Pipes can be used to aggregate all content postings that are made by employees.

The news is not always bad, however. Many employers use social media sites to find out about a job candidate's strengths, education, hobbies, or awards (4). Positive comments about potential and current employees by other online users can also boost a person's standing.

References:

1. Keeping a Closer Eye on Employees' Social Networking
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/keeping-a-closer-eye-on-workers-social-networking/

2. Social Sentry Lets Employers Track Their Workers Across the Internet
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_sentry_track_employees_across_the_web.php

3. Forty-five Percent of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates, CareerBuilder Survey Finds
http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?id=pr519&sd=8/19/2009&ed=12/31/2009&siteid=cbpr&sc_cmp1=cb_pr519_&cbRecursionCnt=2&cbsid=eece0cb6b7b240e88d023e0fbfb833cc-325359835-R9-4

4. Employers face pros, cons with monitoring social networking
http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2009/03/02/smallb3.html

5. Sayonara, Social Sentry: Bosses Can Spy for Free With Web Tools
http://www.switched.com/2010/03/31/sayonara-social-sentry-bosses-can-spy-for-free-with-web-tools/