The Use of Social Media in Hiring
and Firing of Nursing
Gena M. McMahon
Introduction
Since
the rise of technology has greatly influenced our society in recent years, this
brought about a new era where social media has dominated our culture in the
United States. For this reason, corporate America has tried to take advantage
of the fact that in 2014 74% of internet users worldwide use social media (Pew
Research Center, 2014). In the eyes of an employer, social media sites are
perfect matchmakers to pre-screen applicants for jobs based on information that
is made publicly available. Since health care administration makes decisions
by balancing cost effectiveness and efficiency with quality patient care,
social media is used to make pre-judgments about applicants to save time and
money. This is currently an ethical dilemma for a plethora of reasons including
the fact that assumptions are being made about applicants before a scheduled
interview. Also, applications may be discarded base on an employer’s personal
bias based on information provided by social media that should be protected
under law.
Social
media is also a great bank of evidence when the health care team is dealing
with a claim involving HIPPA violations and quality control. Even if a comment
or photo is deleted, the piece of information is still archived and can be
retrieved in the future. This is important when dealing with a nurse’s lack of
integrity or professionalism when evidence is a critical piece of information
to verify an event. However, the use of social media in the firing process can
be an ethical warzone because administration can use it to fire someone as
retaliation for something a subordinate said on a website. This is yet another
situation which is supposed to be prevented via legal employee rights. However,
without strict regulation, employers are still making these decisions.
Pros
of Hiring
Employers
are constantly making decisions based on what is best for the company. For this
reason, they are on a mission to find the most competent workers for the job at
hand because each employee is a unique ambassador who is a portion of the
company image. Supervisors tend to look for traits in applicants that reflect a
company motto, slogan, or promise. When using social media, personality traits
based on photos, posts, or even a quick biography can help employers sync applicants
to the preferred traits and personality that would best reflect the company and
its image. As a result, this can lead to a more productive and economical
employment process that saves time and money for the company who can conducted
fewer, more focused interviews.
Cons
of Hiring
Using
social media to screen during the hiring process is an ethical dilemma that can
result in legal consequences if an employer does not do it correctly. Using information off of social media
sites that was thought to be confidential information is a violation of privacy
and much of this information can be given from photos and biographies. In some
cases, the applicant may have assumed that information was concealed on a site
and faulty privacy settings may have reset to display that information without
consent of the user. Social media can give away information that the EEOC
states is legally protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 such as age,
race, sex, religion (U.S. EEOC, 2009, pp 1-9). For this reason, an employer’s
veracity may be questioned when screening applicants with social media (Cherry
& Jacob, 2014, p 175).
Pros
of Firing
One
of the main perks of social media use in firing of nurses is that it is a way
to strictly enforce HIPPA violations based on solid evidence linked with the
notorious ‘electronic fingerprint’. Any electronic trace of information that
can directly identify a patient (ex. name, photo, room number, and situation)
is a clear violation that needs to be resolved (Knudson, 2012, p 6). Through
the use of social media, the correct legal ramifications can be imposed in
order to build a safer healthcare system with the most competent workers who
protect a patient’s right to privacy.
Cons
of Firing
One of the
issues is that there is no clear-cut regulation of penalizing employers for
firing a subordinate as a form of retaliation for bashing the company and/or
superiors. For this reason, there is a clear violation of justice. (Section 7
and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act clearly protect the rights and voice
of an employee which can quickly be stripped away in a social media policy
(Bagley, DiGiacinto, & Hargraves, 2014, pp 379-380). It can easily be
overlooked upon signing a binding contract upon employment underneath a lengthy
employee handbook and current legislation is not clear or universal enough as
to how employers handle social media policy.
Analysis
of Impact on Health System
The use of
social media is highly economical because of its impact on how quickly
employment decisions can be made. If necessary, it can confirm or invalidate
HIPPA violations and claims of professional misconduct to improve patient
safety and quality of care as health care systems (Cherry, 2014, p154).
Administrators can swiftly hire trustworthy, competent nurses and are willing to
discipline or fire those who do not follow company protocol. In a health care
setting, these claims not only reflect direct violation of federal law, but
institutional policy defined in the employee handbook upon employment (Bagley,
DiGiacinto, & Hargraves, 2014, pp 380-381). For this reason, it can also
promote a more ethically sound workforce that portrays justice, veracity, and
beneficence (Cherry, 2014, p 175). Monitoring social media can be used to
promote patient privacy and ensure restitution for a patient in the event of a
violation in order to promote quality health care.
Employers can also promote quality health care by using
it to screen applicants for traits that depict a personality that would suit
the health care system and positively reflect company image and policy. Pre-screening
applicants is faster, cheaper, and more efficient than scheduling larger
amounts of interviews and researching a greater number of applicants. Employers
can make assumptions based on pictures that depict leadership qualities, an
applicant’s appeared influence on peers, and lifestyle. However, this can
become skewed by an administrator’s personal bias which can lead to the denial
of a perfectly competent applicant (Ferguson, 2013, p 746). Such dilemmas may
involve color, gender, age, and religion; all of which employers can never
legally ask during an interview but can easily obtain via social media. For
this reason, consumers may be affected by a steadily declining group of diverse
nurses which can greatly impact the quality of patient care and patient-caregiver
relationship.
Opinion
In my opinion as
a nurse, I believe that the use of social media for pre-screening applicants is
beneficial because it is something that can be compared to pertinent
information retrieved at a job interview in order to verify accuracy and
veracity of the applicant. Pre-screening with social media can also depict a
person’s life style via posts, pictures, and comments. Red flags that may go
unnoticed during an interview can be detected on a person’s webpage because
people are not always on their ‘best behavior’ on the internet like they are at
a one-on-one meeting. I believe social media can easily reflect a person’s
image and nurses typically trust their superiors to know what is best for the
company. For this reason, since both the administration and faculty mutually
benefit from competent workers, nurses trust that supervisors know their health
care team well enough to pick out the best matches that will contribute to the
quality of the health care team.
Quality nurses know that they are held up to a certain
standard in society and in their practice and use good judgment. For this reason,
it is logically implied that the majority of nurses believe quality nurses have
good judgment as to what they post on social media. As a result, they would likely
question a nurse’s competency if a clear violation of HIPPA or professional
misconduct were to arise on social media.
In my own personal opinion, I believe that social media
should not be used to hire or fire somebody yet until the use is strictly and universally
regulated by federal law because of the ethical and legal dilemmas involved.
The First Amendment gives a person right to free speech can be stripped with a
vague social media policy in the fine print of a hefty employee handbook. Or, it
can illegally be taken away or direct violation of the NLRB Act. This act was
created by the National Labor Relations Board in order to protect both union
and non-union workers from getting fired due to employer retaliation after
criticizing superiors and/or the company itself (Bergeson, 2011, p 46).
Employers can easily violate the NLRB Act because is it
not strictly regulated and most administrators will not pay legal consequences
for taking advantage of this. In addition, many employees are not familiar with
this act and likely don’t even know it exists. Without being armed with the
proper knowledge, they are unaware that they have the right to file a claim
under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to seek justice and regain
their job back if requested. After universal social media policies have made
and laws have been enforced, then I personally will approve of the use of
social media in the hiring and firing of nurses.
Conclusion
Social media is
a cheap, effective, yet economical way to control the quality of service in the
healthcare system. However, both employers and employees should arm themselves
of knowledge regarding legality and the rights of each party and be prepared to
face the potential legal consequences (good and bad) of their actions. Employers
should be forewarned that claims may be filed against them under the EEOC for
wrongfully researching private information protected under the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 or firing under retaliation (NLRB Act). Employees and applicants should
also be forewarned that they can be taken advantage of in this manner if they
are unaware of their rights and are strongly encouraged to gain perspective of
their own rights. From the perspective of a nurse, I believe that the use of
social media in the hiring and firing of nursing is beneficial to maintenance
of a superior healthcare team and long as administrators have no outrageous
bias and follow all EEOC guidelines. However, in my own opinion, I feel that the
EEOC needs to enforce strict regulation on its policies and implement a
universal social media policy.
References
Bagley,
J.E., DiGiacinto, D.D., Hargraves, K. (2014). Radiologic technology, 85(4), pp 377-389.
Bednar,
J. (2013). Social media poses a legal minefield for employers. Businesswest, 30 (14), p 24.
Bergeson,
P. (2011). How social networking sites affect you employment-interface with
Facebook and other social media sites may have legal consequences. The Journal of Physician Assistant
Education, 22(1), p 46.
Cherry,
B., Jacob, S. (2014). Contemporary nursing-issues, trends, and management. Mahlmeister,
L.R., Legal issues in nursing and health
care (p 126,154). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier, Inc.
Cherry,
B., Jacob, S. (2014). Contemporary nursing-issues, trends, and management. In
Sanderson, C., Ethical and bioethical
issues in nursing and health care (pp166-182). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier,
Inc.
Ferguson,
C. (2013). “It’s time for the nursing
profession to leverage social media. Journal
of Advanced Nursing, 69(4), p 746.
Pew
Research Center. (2014). Social
networking fact sheet.
U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2009). Federal equal employment opportunity laws.
