The People Bulletin

In one of the first cases of its kind John Flexman has brought a case against his employer BG Group for constructive dismissal after a dispute with his employers over his profile on LinkedIn, on which he indicated that he was interested in ‘career opportunities’.

According to BG Group a new company policy instructed employees not to tick the ‘career opportunities’ box on the site. By including this option on his profile BG Group have claimed that Mr Flexman used social media inappropriately and as a result of the dispute he resigned from his role as HR executive at the company. The company also cite that he included confidential information on his CV about how he reduced the firm’s rate of staff attrition.

Mr Flexman has argued that the information regarding staff attrition is readily available in the company’s annual report and that 21 of his colleagues, including the manager of the disciplinary process, had ticked the career opportunities box themselves and had not been disciplined. 

The case has again raised the issue of how employees use social networking sites – according to a recent survey only 25% of companies currently have a social media policy[1] and it is unclear how many of those actively enforce the policy.

Commenting on the case, Marcus Rowland, partner and head of the employment group, at media law firm, Wiggin, said:

“The case highlights the potential problems that can arise out of the use of social media sites by employees.  In the absence of a clear policy, it can be very difficult to know where the line should be drawn between what is and what is not acceptable online behaviour. 

“Although a small minority of employers have put in place written rules on this type of thing, most employers do not have any form of policy on the use of social media.  As a result, it’s reasonable to expect that there will be plenty more similar cases in the future”.

 [1] 'Policing social media' in The People Bulletin, 20 October 2011  

See also: 'Employee who let off steam on Facebook unfairly dismissed' in The People Bulletin, 15 September 2011