Call us today 0845 177 0700
4. Modern day referencing
Managers from businesses often tell me that they do not have a problem with online activities of employees because they have employee loyalty. Interestingly in 2002 before the launch of CRB checks as part V of the police act 1997 many people also said this about Criminal Records checks. It was in many cases deemed too draconian, but as a society we now encourage these checks because in truth an employee’s activities when they are representing your brand and dealing with your customers do matter and can very easily damage reputation or worse damage customers.
It is often suggested that employees’ online activities can’t impact a company that
much and so there is no real value to screening using online social profiles. Some
of the biggest brands in the world including Virgin, Apple and the UK NHS have had
to dismiss staff for mis-
5. Time is Money
As a business you employ people to do a job, to fulfil a set of duties in order to propel your business forwards. It takes at least 20 minutes for a recruiter to simply Google a name, read the articles presented, search a name on Facebook and scroll back a few days to see what is there, look on twitter and read someone’s LinkedIn CV. How many applications did you check online in the last year? Individuals already spend on average 13 minutes in every 1 hour at work using social media. Combining these two factors, your business is already likely to be unwittingly wasting a significant amount of time and money.
To request an online social profile report produced by an expert online social profiling business takes around 90 seconds. Introducing social profile monitoring using such a company will ensure that your business has in place the appropriate brand management and social media policies and deterrents against misuse – for a fraction of the cost of managing this internally.
The underlying trend shows that social media and online networking is expanding rather than going out of fashion. Instead of acting outside of the legislation, putting your business at risk of discriminating or missing out on the best talent it is recommended that a specialist online social profiling company should be used. They can offer fair, compliant, objective and factual results that you can feel confident with. They can give more accurate results at a fraction of the cost – whilst keeping you entirely compliant.
If you would like to know more about Online Social Profiling you can contact sarah.poynton@sp-
Feel free to share your feedback on this article @SP_index and include the hash tag #onlinesocialprofiling.
www.linkedin.com/in/sarahpoynton
ENJOYED THIS POST?
Sign up for our newsletter to receive a summary of all new posts from the team at
the SP-
Pre-
Fired for Facebook, #ihatemyboss, #worstjobever – individuals are causing social
media press scandals and embarrassment for their employers all across the UK and
as a result pre-
To help you avoid costly mistakes -
1. Missing out on the best talent
My time working as a recruiter showed me that recruiters jump to a wide variety of conclusions after viewing online social profiles during the recruitment process.
If you are one of the growing numbers of UK companies using social networking sites during the recruitment process you should be careful not to let wild assumptions creep in. A photo from a stag or hen party does not automatically mean beer monster, a photo of someone dancing in wellies at a festival does not mean hippy party animal, and ‘just got married’ status does not mean they will soon be planning maternity leave. I can’t tell you how many times a company’s recruiting representative has dismissed a candidate because of their online photos, football team they support, the type of music they like, or who they are friends with, and in many cases those companies undoubtedly missed out on some of the best talent who probably ended up going to work for competitors.
2. A quick Google search does not a profile make
The vast majority of employers that I talk to admit to using social media channels and/or search engines to view online social profiles of applicants before interviewing them. Many admit to rejecting candidates because of something they viewed. This need to ‘find out more’ usually involves recruiting managers taking a quick look at the first page Google results, maybe the first few status posts on Facebook, or a quick look at a small selection of photos on one or two websites. However, this quick snapshot is definitely not going to be a fair reflection of an individual’s overall online personality and style. More thorough research is required in order to gain an accurate impression about the individual.
If your business carries out such searches you should think about using specialist profiling companies instead, who look at an individual’s digital footprint in a much wider context, covering the entire digital footprint in a fraction of the time it would take a typical recruiting manager. Some can provide role based profiling – a full profile evaluation using researched and dedicated software and profiling tools, providing you with an independent view across the total online landscape from which you can make a more objective decision during the recruitment process and focused to the role.
3. Discrimination is rife
If you are involved in HR or recruitment you will know first-