This is one of those areas where common sense generally prevails but people often get caught out. Take the following comment:
‘Just finished my shift at Fosters where my hormonal boss Nicola shouted at me for no reason. Awful place to work.’
This is likely to be found to be a work related comment and result in disciplinary action despite it being posted on the individual’s personal device, outside the employee’s working hours. The workplace and manager are clearly identified and the individual makes disparaging comments about both.
It is also potential sex discrimination due to linking the word ’hormonal’ with the female boss so could be a serious issue for the employee.
Even if it was only circulated to a closed group it is likely to be found to be work related for the same reasons – if someone dobs the employee in to their employer.
What if the comment was slightly different but still posted outside working hours on a personal device such as ‘Just finished my shift, where my boss shouted at me for no reason. Awful place to work’?
This is less likely to be classed as work related as the workplace and manager are not identified. Clearly work would not be happy about it if they found out but if the individual could not easily be identified then any form of disciplinary action would be far harder to justify.
Issues such as this are common in the workplace so employers really do need to train their managers and teams.
An effective way to do this is through the 40-minute ‘banter and behaviour in the workplace’ e-learning course from 186hr Human Resources consultancy. It could be the best £49.95 you have ever spent (discounts are available for bulk purchases)!
See the link below for more details, including a 2 minute demo that discusses the learning points from a swimming pool legal case where lifeguards made lewd comments about a female customer.
Banter & Behaviour in the Workplace
This new e-learning course describes the various forms of harassment and discrimination in an easy-to-understand format so organisations can appreciate where the bar is at work between acceptable behaviour and that which is likely to lead to a grievance or successful Tribunal claim.
For more details about the course, HR, discrimination or harassment in general please contact us. We would love you hear from you.