Stacy GreenwoodHR Manager, Shepherd Eye Center

Understanding the consequences

If I were in Marilyn’s position, I would not only ask Barry to remove all of his work-related social media posts, but I would also discuss with him the repercussions of his actions. I would ask him to be mindful of what he posts and remind him that such negative posts can reflect poorly on not only himself and his coworkers, but also the doctors for whom he works. Considering Barry is a good technician, I would not terminate him immediately, but I would tell him to consider our conversation a warning. I would also work on drafting a social media policy that would spell out the consequences of employees posting negative work-related posts to their social media pages.

Steve Robinson, COE, FASOAPractice Management Consultant

Pointing to a much deeper problem

In today’s world, more and more people choose to express themselves in this way because of the freedom they feel and the lack of effort required to accomplish this. The unfortunate part of this situation is that while the person posting the information does so with the delusion that only their small circle of friends is reading, in reality the whole world may do so. All too often, and sometimes to the chagrin of the poster, these words written in haste come back to haunt them.

So, why did the tech choose to post this information instead of attempting to deal with it as he should? The likely answer is that either he did not feel the freedom to discuss the problems with the proper persons or he did not think that it would do any good. In either case, the owners and management of the practice bear some, but certainly not all, of the responsibility for the incident.

True enough, most of us feel that it is not proper for the tech to vent in public, but this activity points to a much deeper problem than the absence of discretion on the employee’s part. Effective management would dictate a number of fixes for this situation: The first of which would be the establishment of an environment that would create a team approach to handling the patient load.

When employees sense that they are being “pushed like animals,” something is wrong. What they should feel is, we are short staffed and we will need to work together as a team to overcome this obstacle. Further, a clear understanding of just why it is inappropriate to “bash” your employer in the public eye is needed.

There is a fine line between what the practice can and cannot dictate when it comes to freedom of expression. Public postings that are clearly negative toward the practice and the doctors will ultimately reflect in a loss of patient confidence and, in turn, a loss of business which will impact the posting person.

While it is sad that this approach is required, personnel policies that preclude such postings should be the order of the day.