Episode 3: Should Employers Remember If the Internet Never Forgets?
What can executives do when the profile person they just hired previously did something they wish the Internet would ignore?
Transcript
Chris Riback: I'm Chris Riback. This is Call In with Dr. Alexandria White. We discuss business leadership in our time of social change when to call in, when to call out, and how to build sustainable business value today.
Today's topic, Should employers remember if the Internet never forgets? Before our conversation though, an ask from us to you. We hope you like these call in conversations. And if so, we'd appreciate if you take a moment, go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and if you're so moved, leave a five-star review. The ratings really matter. They go a long way to helping other people find the podcast.
Dr. Alexandria White: Our show is brought to you by Clayton, Dubilier & R ice, which is committed to a more diverse and inclusive future. Let's call in.
Chris Riback: Today's topic. Should employers remember if the internet never forgets? Dr. White, great to talk with you again.
Dr. Alexandria White: You too, Chris.
Chris Riback: So there's an old song, before your time, I am sure, that goes: “Rock and roll never forgets.” You know what else never forgets, Alex?
Dr. Alexandria White: What's that, Chris?
Chris Riback: The internet. And so the question I wanted to explore with you today is, for employers, should there be a statute [00:01:00] of limitations on an employee's actions? Maybe that employer is hiring the employee. Maybe the employee is already on staff.
So let's start with the premise. Should an employer even be concerned when an employee's past actions resurface on the internet?
Dr. Alexandria White: I tell my 16 year-old daughter all the time that the internet does not have a delete button. What you put in cyberspace is important and can impact your future.
So yes, this topic is very important to employees and employers. Why? In today's 24-hours news cycle, no one wants to be caught up in cancel culture. So I think that as employees, it's imperative that you understand your past and your current social media footprint is important. It can impact employees. It can hurt overall company morale, and guess what? It can hurt profitability in companies.
Chris Riback: Yes, that is for sure. And in listening to you, I think we might have a new advertising campaign. What happens in cyberspace stays cyberspace forever.
Dr. Alexandria White: I like, I like it.
Chris Riback: Well maybe we can sell that to Las Vegas. Maybe they'll rent that from us. But look, it's serious. And your advice to your daughter is right, in my mind. It's the same advice that many of us give our own kids. And it's come to affect, as well, employees.
So as with all of our conversations, this topic is pegged to recent news and the most prominent recent headline, certainly not the only one, occurred with the popular TV show Jeopardy. I know you're aware, obviously, I know we've all heard of Jeopardy. But let me just quickly run through some of the facts as reported by the Washington Post and The Ringer.
You may recall that after Alex Trebek passed away, Jeopardy conducted a massive search for its next host. They ended up hiring two people, their existing executive producer, Mike Richards, and actor Mayim Bialik. Then, a report in The Ringer. Turns out, seven years earlier, Richards was the host of another program, a podcast called The Randumb Show. Now that's “randumb” spelled R-A-N-D-U-M-B. Quite a clever name. According to a review of all 41 episodes by The Ringer. The reporter went through and reviewed all 41 of these episodes – Richards [00:04:00] frequently made inappropriate comments about women in ... I'm quoting an article here, a Washington Post article.
"Richards frequently made inappropriate comments about women and their bodies, as well as disparaging remarks about Jewish people and poor people on the podcast that he hosted between 2013 and 14. Now, Richards apologized for the comments, but after a period, Sony decided to remove Richards from the host role, but kept him as executive producer."
So, first stage questions. Was Sony right to fire Richards as host? And if so, was that because of the content of what he said or was that because he was the front face of the brand?
Dr. Alexandria White: Yes, and. So yes, Sony was appropriate in terminating Richards. His comments were pervasive. It just wasn't a one hit. He continuously said disparaging comments about multiple demographics. And you can hear it over and over. And so being the front face of this brand, and people can go and listen to what he said, is detrimental. Let's talk about the brand of Jeopardy.
Chris Riback: Yes.
Dr. Alexandria White: I absolutely loved Alex Trebek. In fact, my Twitter handle is @AlexTR3Beck. So Alex ... It's spelled a little different, but it's @AlexTR3Beck. Don't laugh. I love him. So I watched Jeopardy and I would watch Alex Trebek and he was welcoming, and he's like the cool uncle, and he was inclusive and I've never heard him say anything disparaging or inappropriate to any contestants. And so that is what Jeopardy felt like when you watched Alex Trebek. I watched Jeopardy with my grandmother and my aunt and I have fun feelings and memories. And if Richards is going to be that front facing, it just didn't sync up with what Jeopardy invoked for its viewers. And so they were correct in firing him.
Chris Riback: Okay. So you answered half of it there, and that was the first half of what Sony faced.
Dr. Alexandria White: Correct.
Chris Riback: He was the front face. It's the brand. He's on air. So they fired him I guess, or took away that role from him, but initially kept him as executive producer of the show. Executive producer, for those who don't know is the person who is almost like CEO of the show. Runs the show.
Dr. Alexandria White: Correct.
Chris Riback: And subsequently Sony faced follow-up questions. If Richards was unfit to be host, why was he fit to be executive producer? Fair question?
Dr. Alexandria White: I don't even think he was fit to be executive producer. His personality and his past mistakes became too pervasive for him to do his job adequately. Think about the people who work with it. Every time people would ask about, "What about that podcast?" Or if he made a decision, it's because he's biased against poor people. Having sexist comments about women. His reputation as a professional would continuously be questioned, not only by employees, but think about potential employees of Sony who saw ... They're going to continue to let him be an executive producer? And they know how he feels about specific demographics? I don't want to work for Sony.
Chris Riback: So there's potentially a trickle-down effect.
Dr. Alexandria White: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Especially in that regard.
Chris Riback: Of course, Jeopardy isn’t the only place where a person's previous actions have put employers in the position of having to answer the question, whether employers should remember if the internet never forgets. Some having occurred on the job, like Richards'. Others of these events have occurred in people's personal lives.
So let let's broaden this out in a couple of directions. First, let me ask, from an employee's perspective, Alex, you might not know this because of the upright, upstanding, fine life that you have lived personally, but many of the rest of us have done things that we wish we hadn't. And on off chance that maybe you made one little thing at some point ... At our worst moments, many of us have been grateful that a cell phone recording us was not present.
If my historical actions have no bearing on my ability to do my job today ... So I'm not the brand, I'm not the host of Jeopardy. It's not a role like that. Let's talk theoretically about a different type of role, a role that someone listening to this podcast, an employer, a manager, a CEO, would have to worry about in their own company. If my historical actions have no bearing on my ability to do my job today, why in the world should it matter? Why should an employer have a right to impede me from making a living based on something thing I did years ago?
Dr. Alexandria White: Well, let me first just say I am no angel.
Chris Riback: There's our pull quote! Maybe we change the name of this. “I Am No Angel,” starring Dr. Alexandria White.
Dr. Alexandria White: And so I have done things or said things that I would not like broadcast. And so we are all works in progress. I fundamentally believe that we are better than the worst thing that we did. I'm an optimist. I believe that most people are good to the core.
However, I do believe in accountability for your actions. And so, yes, I am a great data analyst today, October, 2021. However, in 2001, I posted something on MySpace. I think that was cool back then. And a former colleague found it or a current colleague found it. And I've seen people lose their jobs. They lose the respect of their colleagues for something that they did in 2000, 2001. They're no longer that person. And as an optimist, I believe that people can change. However, you do have to be accountable for your actions and employees have to know that. Anything that you do nowadays, you can be tracked.
Employers have the right to hold you accountable for things that you have done. We're going to talk a little bit about the legal aspects of that as well as social media policies that employers are doing. We'll talk a little bit about that. But yes-
Chris Riback: Yes, so on the first front, quite a lesson. Quite a thing for employees, for any of us as an employee, to think about, that, that line, that bright line, that historically, I think many of us did feel existed between our public lives and our private lives between our private lives and our work lives. It certainly does seem to be the reality. And to think that you can keep them separate is perhaps, at best, naive.
Now from the employer's point of view, what should matter? I think we're all kind of looking for some guidance around what should matter. Should it be whether the historical offense is relevant to the current job? Regardless of relevance, a subjective analysis of what the historical offense was – so maybe it was irrelevant to the job, but it was really, really, really offensive? Is it dependent on the reaction of others, whether those others are internal or external to your organization? How about the amount of time past? Is there a statute of limitations of sorts? Does it matter what business sector that you're in? What your actual role is in the company? Give us some guidance, if you would, from an employer's point of view, Alex. What should matter?
Dr. Alexandria White: Okay, so let's take the feelings out of it. It hurt someone. But let's go to the business case. When a behavior clearly crosses a stated employer policy, this is in black and white. It's in their onboarding documents. It's part of their mission, values and goals. Then that is grounds to terminate, to be held accountable for those actions, right? In many companies' social media policies, it's clearly stated what you can do and what you cannot do on social media.
Chris Riback: But I posted this on social media 10 years ago, Alex, 15 years ago. You're going to jam me for it now?
Dr. Alexandria White: Unfortunately yes, because now we're in the news cycle based on something that you've posted. You're an executive producer or CEO, and now you've put our company in the new cycle.
Chris Riback: But what if I'm just a line manager? What if I'm just a person trying to get my product out the door and I'm managing a product line in a tech company or a startup or a bank or something like that?
Dr. Alexandria White: I love personal examples. So picture this. Alex is a new professional, brand new professional. Not going to say the employer. And so during the middle of the day, I decided to go jogging and I have a colleague as one of my Facebook friends. And so I posted on my Facebook, oh, I'm out enjoying a jog. That colleague screenshotted that post and sent it to my supervisor, not knowing that I had previously had paid time off for half of the day. And so that is how something that was innocent done came back to haunt me. And not only it changed how I viewed that colleague, but it was just undue attention that was put on me as well as my supervisor.
Take that example and use that for a past tweet or post, and a colleague finds that, sends it up the chain. Now it's incumbent of everyone that's involved. Well, we found this, it has been submitted to human resources. I've seen it happen. And so that person might not be that same person or that statement, but it comes back to what we said in the introduction. The internet does not have a delete button.
And so currently, does the employer have a right to hold you accountable for what you said in the past? Does it impact their bottom line? Will it put them in the 24-hour news cycle? Will it impact you in any advances that you want to make in the company?
Chris Riback: Is there a difference for the employer between what they have the right to do, which is, let's say extensive, versus what they should do? Is it right for them to quote, to punish me for that post that I made 15 years ago, 20 years ago and I'm a different person now?
Dr. Alexandria White: Well, many states are at-will employers. And I think it's a human resource issue. And it's not a blanket answer. I think it depends on the company, the state, and the policies for that company. But nowadays, companies are very explicit, very explicit about things that they want from their employees. Do you know that in some companies, human resources has a log where they track people's social media even before they hire them? It's become so pervasive that companies are being proactive. Even before we hire you, let's do a social media scrub because they don't want to have to deal with this when you're already employed.
Chris Riback: Yes. Let's just make sure.
Dr. Alexandria White: Let's just make sure.
Chris Riback: Let me try this from another front, Alex. You're talking about the pre-screen, the pre-scrub before an employee, before a person even gets hired. Alex, I thought we were all supposed to hire the person with the best qualifications. A 2019 Pew Research Center report in fact, found that 74% of Americans say employers should only take a person's qualifications into account when making these decisions, even if it results in less diversity in the workplace. So Alex, 74% of Americans. Why should all this other stuff matter if the person in question has the best qualifications? Is it the employer's role to act as judge?
Dr. Alexandria White: Okay, so now I'm interjecting feelings. We talked about the business case with profit, morale, external stakeholders. Here's the feelings part. Do you want to work with someone that knowingly has feelings towards your gender, your sexual orientation, how you grew up? I think that it's very important to work with people and engage with people in the workplace. I just read an article about empathy and how empathy is the new go-to for CEOs. And being empathetic to people is not being sympathetic. It's understanding their lived experiences. And if someone that you work with has said some statements, has said things that are just so ... Just terrible, how can you go to work with them?
I said before that we're better than the worst thing that we've done. But let's be human right now. If I know someone has a bias or discrimination against mothers? I am a proud mother. And they don't like children, or they feel that mothers should be underpaid? That's going to impact how I work with them. We're human. And so you have to take that into consideration. Feelings, and how people are going to engage with that person. I've seen people who have kept their job, but no one wanted to work with them. The employer did not fire them. But they were ostracized from group projects, from stretch assignments. Some of their mentors or their sponsors removed their support. And eventually, that person left the company.[1] [2]
Dr. Alexandria White: And so while this might not be the business case, I'm interjecting those feelings into that because you said that 74% of Americans say employers should only take a person's qualifications into account. While qualifications are a great, great asset to a person, we know those soft skills are just as important. And so is it the employer's role to act as a judge? In some cases, yes. I firmly believe that.
Chris Riback: So I understand that. And judgment is a quality, one would think, of a manager. Of a CEO. Of an executive. Somebody who's managing others. Part of that person's responsibility is to have and apply judgment, I would think.
Dr. Alexandria White: Yes.
Chris Riback: Simultaneously, you know as well as I do, we live in a data-driven world. Everything needs to be measured. Success, capability. If we can't measure it, we often hear it doesn't exist. So where's the balance there? Because you said that if an employee, if someone has said, if a colleague has something so terrible, how do you know, how does the manager know “so terrible”? There's no measurement for “so terrible.” So what type of guidance would you give employers around, how to divine whether something meets the local or internal company standard of what is, quote, so terrible?
Dr. Alexandria White: Well, we can have a whole different podcast on that, but let's talk about the macro level. The macro level is being in the news cycle. You don't want to be in the news cycle. Or there's an article about you.
Let's talk about the micro. One-on-one employee interactions, human resources being involved, restorative circles for companies, policies and procedures being implemented based off of something that's happened on the internet. Micro is that one on one. Can the employer keep it in-house? And if we keep it in-house, how can we make sure that all parties are taken care of?
Here are some things that employees have done. They've created restorative justice circles, which is everyone sits around and talks about how the community and individuals were impacted. Policies and procedures were created. Social media policy saying this is acceptable, unacceptable, in connection to our mission, values, and goals.
Another way is just having communication between the impacted parties and the alleged perpetrator. Sometimes conversation and communication can help with overall morale in regards to that. So depending on your employer, and the impact of what happened years ago on social media, or yesterday, there are different avenues that employers have taken to make sure that all parties are heard, that they're listened to, and that all impacted feel a sense of belonging. Even the ones that were the alleged perpetrators.
Chris Riback: Alex, most of our conversations, of course, address questions of balance. And this one is clearly no different. So let's bring it home and let's make it as tangible as you can and help us with that balance and my favorite part of our conversations, Dr. White's Wisdom. How should employers navigate the path to determine the question of our day today: Should employers remember if the internet never forgets?
Dr. Alexandria White: Well, first, when I have this discussion with a lot of people, they mentioned freedom of speech.
Chris Riback:
Dr. Alexandria White: Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences. Let's say that again. Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences. So whether you've done something 20 years ago or 20 seconds ago, it can impact your job, your livelihood. You could be the next person in cancel culture cycle.
So what do you do? What do employers do? Have a current and actionable social media policy. Many companies, of course, are talking about the proactive things that they're doing. They're doing social media scrubs, audits on potential employees. Well, what about the people that they've already hired? Is your current social media policy across the board? Are you educating your employees on what's acceptable to work and thrive in your company?
Next, encourage employees to be aware of their social media posts and any past statements. I've seen campaigns, internal campaigns for companies, that say, what did you post today? Was it good? Was it bad? Was it ugly? Internal companies, or campaigns that are constantly urging its employees to think about their social media footprint.
Chris Riback: Almost like a public service announcement, but internal.
Dr. Alexandria White: There you go. There you go. Because it makes people think. And in this day and age, when everything is so polarized and people are so divided on so many things, let's be cognizant of who you work for and what they believe and what you want to portray as an employee.
Chris Riback: And maybe who you work with.
Dr. Alexandria White: That's right. Now, I mentioned some things for employers. I want to talk to employees. Conduct your own social media audit. I'm a professor. I have a podcast. I'm a politician, I'm a mom. I'm in sorority. And so I conduct my social media audit every quarter. I Google myself. Even though I have multiple streams of income and I'm hired and I get to work with awesome people like you, Chris, I want to make sure I see what other people see on the internet.
So employees, conduct your own social media audit. Limit access to your social media to your coworkers. While the internet does not have a delete button, use your social media for your personal and family space. Decide to keep them separate. I tell former colleagues that I will connect with you on LinkedIn, but my other social media platforms, my Facebook, where I have pictures of me and my daughter and what I did this weekend, that's for me. I spend enough time with you in the office or in this Zoom office that I want to keep a little bit for myself. And sometimes, that allows people to not worry about what I post.
And so just a review. Employers, make sure you have a current and actionable social media policy. Have internal campaigns, to make sure that your employees are aware of the social media expectations. And last but not least, if you are an employee for a company, hold yourself accountable. Do an audit, separate personal and professional life.
Dr. Alexandria White: And for employees, one last tactical thing that could be very impactful for your job search. Let onboarding or search committees know about something that maybe you are ashamed of or proud of that could be controversial, such as protesting, an opt-in. Or a social media post. Be proactive. Show some integrity and allow the employers to maybe ask you about that and to learn more about your thinking during those times.
Chris Riback: Alex, as we close, I feel like we'd be doing this episode a disservice if we didn't end things with a Jeopardy-style Daily Double. You ready?
Dr. Alexandria White: I'm ready.
Chris Riback: Okay. The answer is: “A list of actionable tactics one should always consider and likely act upon in challenging business cases.” What's the question?
Dr. Alexandria White: What is social media policy audit? What is the policy for social media? For companies, organizations, and individuals? I think I got it. Did I get it right?
Chris Riback: I'm very sorry. You did not. Because obviously the correct answer is, what is Dr. White's Wisdom?
Dr. Alexandria White: Oh my goodness.
Chris Riback: Alex, thank you for playing. Talk to you soon.
Dr. Alexandria White: Thank you, Chris.
Very audible breath here from Chris, can't seem to clean it up (using spectral view), so either we leave it or have to cut the whole line
I have my iso version of the audio. Whoever does the final edit on any additional changes (I believe this will be Kip), I can give the iso file to use better version
