As you might already know, my partner works in the media industry and I like to hear about what he does when he comes home just as he listens to me and my HR adventures for that particular day. He’s accompanied me to HR events and I like to go along to some of his events. I like to do this because I am interested in social media (not that that is all he does by the way!) and also because it reminds me to step out of that HR mindset at work i.e. I remember not everyone thinks like us.

Yesterday on Mumbrella, there was an article posted on Crust, (Gourmet Pizza Bar) because they tweeted this comment “Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness” and provided this link to a video showing bad female drivers.

There was a bit of a reaction on twitter about it being offensive and a few hours later they tweeted “Sorry guys, we apologise for the video and meant no offense to drivers, female or otherwise. Lesson learned and thanks for the feedback.”

People then started commenting on Mumbrella with both sides of the argument being represented. I posted the following comment:

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Basically what I was saying is, that even in the workplace there are times when this sort of thing happens and its no scandal or major issue because we are all human and diverse individuals. In a working environment there is bound to be times when someone makes a comment like this which in hindsight they might later regret. My point though was that this was clearly a one-off that they have already apologised for and not something that needs to be made into a huge deal. It was a “silly” comment, and even when bullying and harassment complaints are considered in the courts, they take into account how affected the individual was, what a reasonable person would consider to be offensive etc. I just thought people should lighten up a bit, as there are many more serious incidents which need to be represented.

Someone anonymously replied to my comment with this:

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While I find this person’s language towards me offensive (lol), I would like to reply and invite your comments as well- as the Sydney Human Resources Community.

Let’s treat this as a real workplace scenario. Someone in the workplace makes a comment about females being bad drivers in a clear attempt to be humorous and make others laugh.

Workplace bullying or harassment involves the persistent ill treatment of a person (get NSW info here). In other words:

It is repeated or persistent over a period of time
It is offensive, intimidating, humiliating, or degrading and ridicules or insults the person at work.

The tweet concerned was not repeated or a persistent message over a period of time so you would be hard pressed getting this one across the line as bullying and harassment. Not to say it should be ignored, it should be addressed if the individual wishes to, but it’s important to note that it isn’t bullying or harassment generally until it is repeated (serious breaches would be handled differently). Now I acknowledge that some may have found it offensive or even degrading towards women- so let’s run with that line i.e. you have someone that comes to you at work saying that they feel that way.

As a HR professional, the steps that I would normally recommend to someone who is being bullying would be listed as following:

Keep detailed records about the incidents- this could be jotting down something in an email or on paper
Talk about it with someone who can provide assistance such as your manager, HR staff or an Equity and Diversity Officer.
If you feel comfortable let the bully know that their behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable
Do not retaliate- and walk away from the situation if it becomes out of control
Seek resolution – informal or formal process

So in the workplace, the person who was offended would have come to me and as per the above, I would recommend that they speak with Crust Pizza and let them know that it makes them uncomfortable (which the twitter community did). What was the outcome?

Crust Pizza apologised and reiterated that it “meant no offense to drivers, female or otherwise”. They then articulated that they had learned their lesson and then thanked the community for the feedback.

You couldn’t ask for this to have gone any better in the workplace.

My personal opinion was that it wasn’t a big deal and I personally wasn’t offended by it. I am able to have a laugh at myself and acknowledge that I will make mistakes. Coming from a sport background it’s important to remember that Babe Ruth is remembered as the home run king even though he still holds the record for the greatest number of strikeouts!

So keen to hear your thoughts. Did I deserve the bashing from @HR Infraction for voicing my personal opinion?

Last night I went along to the first Digital Citizens Event in Sydney. You have heard me mention Social Media Club Sydney before and how I admire the way in which people in the media industry network.

Well a few of their members broke away from the group and wanted to start something a bit different; hence Digital Citizens was born. The alternative organisation is “aimed at attracting a wider audience than marketing professionals” according to Mumbrella.

In a release to announce the launch of Digital Citizens the group said:

“The intention is to provide an open forum which encourages free and frank debate. Digital Citizens is an inclusive, informal organisation dedicated to knowledge sharing and discussion of social, political, ethical and professional issues related to new technologies and the social web. It’s agency agnostic and the only qualification for participating is the desire to speak.

So I’m thinking- this is great. Social media isn’t just about those in the media industry. People in communications, PR, HR, small businesses are all getting into it and want to hear about how to do a good job.

So the topic last night concerned the grey area between one’s personal online presence and representing the brand. There was lots of the usual banter around whether you should be allowed to say whatever you think about your employer or clients if you are using a personal account with a disclaimer etc.

There were some important points around this that were made last night regarding the law in Australia that I don’t think people are aware of. Despite the hugely popular notion of ‘Freedom of Speech’ derived from the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights in the United States there is no explicit legal protection of freedom of speech in Australia.

The Human Rights Act 2004 does talk about an individuals ‘right to freedom of expression’, however for those working in the Australian media industry, this intricate area of the law tries to balance the need for the press to have that ability to disclose information for public interest versus the media’s benefit of releasing information for commercial advantage.

Not a journalist? Why does it impact me?

Often society finds itself in a predicament whereby the law needs to catch up with technological advances as they impact upon how we live life and interact with others. The arena of defamation law is no different, particularly as these advances impact upon the way in which we now communicate. The real implications for defamation law impact upon the ordinary citizen and this is for two reasons. The first is that they are not trained in defamation law and the second is the fact that in modern society, many conversations that would normally take place in person in a verbal conversation are now taking place online in a written format.

Although the comments whether spoken or written remain defamatory in nature, individuals who now publish online are exposing themselves to a much more heightened risk of being prosecuted for defamation.

A lot of people last night on the twitter stream were saying things like ‘just use commonsense’ but as @megsandbacon says:

What’s defamation anyway?

Defamation may be defined as ’the wrong of injuring another’s reputation without good reason or justification” and the part of defamation that we are concerned with is that of ‘libel’ which is defamation by written or printed words, pictures. In the 1996 report on defamation law (A.C.T. Community Law Reform Committee. 1996 [Online]) it was stated that “a defamatory statement is one that is likely to cause ordinary, reasonable people to think less of the person about whom the words or images are published. An inference that casts a defamatory imputation is enough to bring an action” (Electronic Frontiers Australia. 2006, [Online]).

For example in Western Australia, an academic was charged for defamatory statements which were published in an online science bulletin board (Rindos v Hardwick). Harwick made a statement which imputed that Rindos had sex with a minor and basically that his whole career had been built upon his ability as a bully rather than as researcher. Whilst gossiping is rife within most workplaces, these statements were published online where approximately 23,000 academics and students have access internationally and subsequently Hardwick was ordered to pay $40,000 in damages to Rindos as he couldn’t justify the comments or use an alternative defence.

Another recent case in Perth illustrates that even if you have an anonymous account- you can still be found and sued.

I would encourage organizations to think carefully about this. If everyone had commonsense this wouldn’t be an issue, but everyone’s workplace has it’s very own village idiot so what are you going to do to protect your brand from stuff like this?

So now with my HR hat on I would say that employers need to seriously consider an education piece around social media that is built into their current polices, values and culture. Don’t rely on peoples commonsense.

I hope by now you’ve heard about R U OK? in your workplace or from one of your friends. In the instance that you haven’t, R U OK? is an organisation which is about preventing suicide in Australia.

The premise is simple- a conversation can change a life. By connecting with friends, colleagues and loved ones and simply talking about what’s happening- suicide can be prevented.

R U OK? is inspired by the death of a man named Barry Larkin; a successful business management consultant who committed suicide. His sons decided to initiate a national suicide awareness initiative fourteen years after his death in the aims of encouraging ordinary Australians, like themselves, to come together and support each other in a bid to tackle this silent killer, by promoting connection at every level of Australian society.

Their website claims that suicide claims the lives of more Australians each year than the road toll – over 2000 people every year (Source: ABS 2007 statistics). It is the biggest killer of men and women 15-35 years old. For every person who takes their own life, it is estimated that up to 10 people make an attempt. That means each year approximately 20,000 people are directly affected.

This has impacted the media industry (and hence corporate community) in a big way because Gavin Larkin (son of Barry Larkin) led the initiative as the CEO of the creative agency The Brand Shop.

Watch Gavin talk about it all on the Mumbrella report here (and my organisation is mentioned as a participant).

Interestingly with regards to HR; Mumbrella actually ran an article called “Agencies ‘undervalue human resources to detriment of stressed staff’” this afternoon.

Aegis Media Regional CEO Lee Stephens is quoted as saying “It outrages me that there are so few HR departments in our industry. We really need a commitment to quality HR. We’ve got three people in HR and I couldn’t imagine life without them,” he said.

On the flip side, some of the comments from people in the industry who decided to leave posts on the site were slightly different. Here are a few, but you can check out the whole thing on the Mumbrella site.

Wouldn’t the logical solution here be, instead of hiring more HR staff to sooth stressed and overworked staff, actually hiring more staff to take the workload and stress off the current ones?

 
don’t really buy the need for more HR “specialists”. surely the answer is giving more ownership to the whole agency and get more collective decision-making about what kind of agency they want to be. i’m sure some HR people are well qualified and very useful but my experience of junior to mid-level HR people is not great. would be more effective to spend the money on a good espresso machine…
 

I could talk at length as to how true this is and how many ridiculously unprofessional agency professionals I’ve worked with in management positions who think that working your employees til they burn out is something that is across the industry and therefore acceptable. Oh well I am just extremely thankful that I don’t have to put up with it anymore being on client side…

In the case of many agency manager the roles these people hold have been are evolutionary. People did not necessarily start out in ad land to become manager of people, and in many cases they may not be equipped or trained to deal with the requirements of their positions and the responsibilities inherent in these roles. Management training on topics like issue resolution, how to deal with problems, recruitment and so on are significant advantages of having an in-house HR team.

Very interesting words from the frontline for HR and senior leaders to take onboard.