By silicon.com, 10 January 2005 16:55
News that Waterstone's has sacked an employee over blogging isn't the first and is unlikely to be the last such incident - but it serves to highlight how wrong businesses are getting it when dealing with employees' personal thoughts online.
Blogger Joe Gordon was fired for calling his boss 'evil' and referring to his employer as Bastardstone's on his website.
Now, this sort of language might not endear you to your higher-ups but should it really be a sacking offence?
If bosses handed out P45s every time a worker badmouthed his superiors after a hard day at the coal-face, there would be empty seats beyond number across the UK.
Gordon made a mistake when he let his occasionally less-than-complimentary thoughts be seen by other web users but his bosses messed up properly when they sacked him.
Doubtless, the management thought they were protecting the company's reputation when they sacked Gordon, but instead of stopping the blogging, Waterstone's gave Gordon free rein to talk about his experiences and ensure that even more people discovered his blog and found out precisely what the now ex-bookseller said about his bosses.
Had they taken Gordon to one side, asked him to cease writing about the company and to remove certain previous comments, Gordon told silicon.com he would have complied - and thus there would have been no resulting fuss.
Instead, the company have landed themselves with a huge amount of bad publicity.
Waterstone's, like most companies, has no policy regarding employee blogs, so it shouldn't be surprised that some, perhaps naïve, employees don't know where they stand when they write about their jobs on the web.
With the number of blog readers and writers growing at a stellar rate, and bloggers quickly building a reputation for saying what others dare not, this looks to be a problem that may crop up with even greater frequency in the future.
Instead of hauling a committed book fan with 11 years service under his belt across the coals, Waterstone's would have done well to have put the same employee resource into drafting a better code of conduct for its workforce - and making sure they knew about it.
For a company that makes a virtue of fighting censorship, to sack a man for a few barbed comments seems like overkill at best, and intellectual snobbery at worst.
Comments
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1. John Woods
I wish I'd written that!
Right on the nail. I aborted a likely-to-become contentious blog myself after about 4 posts, because I realised I could end up in contempt of court. But the temptation to write in detail about one's private life, and the difficulty in simultaneously protect one's identity remain in conflict.
2. Rob Wingfield
Good point. Employers should welcome comments from their employees. It gives them a chance to assess employee satisfaction and even do something to improve it. They should have taken the guy aside and found out what was bugging him - and then done something about it within the company. What happened to the good old suggestion scheme?
3. Mike Hingley
I'm not sure i want to do any further business with a company that punishes an employee based on his own views and opinions. It's prejudice plain and simple - and the one thing I can't stand is prejudice. I don't expect it within the workplace. Therefore Waterstones won't be getting any business off me - I shall go elsewhere. I won't recommend them. I won't visit their store. If we all fight for what's important we can change companies attitudes.
Silicon - how about printing a list of 'enlightened' employers
Cheers!
Mike
4. John Foster
me too Mike. Unless Bastardstone's reinstate Gordon.
5. anonymous
Tim Waterstone would be upset to hear his name taken in vain - pity he doesn't run the business any more.
I'm sure the regime was more enlightened then.
6. Frank Rizzo
Waterstones used to be a great place to work, until it was taken over by HMV. Now it's every bit as soul-grinding as that blog suggests. People who couldn't give a toss about books are in charge, and it shows, not only in their deplorable handling of employees, but also in the atmosphere of the shops themselves. Boo!
7. anonymous
I don't get all this "It's all the Employers problem" If people don't like their position in employment, they should quit. Take some responsibility for your own life.
8. Brendan Maher
The company has a right to protect their reputation. The point is they need a policy in place so that employees know where they stand. Without this sacking is an inappropriate response. They should also have proper internal complaints procedures so that they become aware of an employee who feels like this before the rest of the world finds out.