Cos rush to resolve staff’s cyber rants

MUMBAI:

Social media

has increasingly become a platform for employees to vent their ire against policies and practices followed by their organisation. Many a times, it’s the only way in which employees can let the world know about the goings on in their places of work, whether substantiated or not.

Recently, a sound clip demonstrating the manner in which a Tech Mahindra manager was sacked went viral on social media, revealing the ugly side of HR. Susan Fowler’s blog about the “toxic culture” at Uber had greater reverberations, resulting in a change of leadership. A post by a

Cadila Pharmaceuticals

employee about why he quit the company added to the growing clamour, giving people the strength to speak up and speak out.

Mukund Trivedy, head of Cadila Pharmaceuticals’ corporate communications, recently quit the company and, in a

LinkedIn

post, charged the company’s CMD Rajiv Modi of allegedly “routinely abusing, misbehaving and humiliating employees”. Trivedy, who had joined the company in October last year, told TOI he was not questioning the authority of his bosses, and reiterated that this was about giving basic respect to an employee.

Responding to TOI’s queries, Cadila Pharmaceuticals termed it as an internal matter of the company, and referred to its statement of August 21 on LinkedIn, where the company has mentioned that it may take necessary legal action to counter the attack on its reputation. Cadila Pharmaceuticals termed Trivedy’s post as a tirade with “malicious content”. The company alleged that Trivedy had become “disconnected from work in the last three months”.

Such instances not only dent the employer brand of a company but also impact its ability to attract and retain good talent. Candidates looking to join an organisation would not commit to do so before glancing through social media sites to know what ex-employees and current workers have to say about the culture of the place.

In such a scenario, organisations — big and small — want to safeguard their reputation. Prabir Jha, an HR industry veteran who is also global chief people officer at

Cipla

, said, “Companies need to acknowledge this reality and cannot deny that these instances are only going to increase. Such internal issues between the employer and employee should be resolved, and should never spill over to social media. Organisations should take note of the implications (of such events) and relook at practices that may be bothering employees.”

One way in which companies can protect their image is by ensuring employees get an outlet and their grievances are heard and addressed. As part of branding, many companies encourage their employees to post events and activities being conducted within the organisation to promote the culture and employer brand of the organisation. At times, employees also reveal insider information or post extreme or prejudiced comments.

Sudhir Dhar, director and HR head,

Motilal Oswal Financial Services

, said, “Employers may deal with such posts, not by condemning the individual but by accepting the fact that they are free to express their perception, after which the organisation needs to validate it with the correct facts. When the ratio of good vs bad events is 100:1, it becomes way easier to validate it. Organisations can even work on creating space internally for employees to share their grievances before taking it to social media.”

Dhar said every individual has the right to express his/her views and organisations should appreciate the trend that employees post anything and everything on social media. “The important thing is to realise that while employees post any content on social media, it could be the perception of the employee and not the reality,” said Dhar.

As companies introspect on how they should handle such situations, Naresh Sharma, managing partner,

Antal International

(Jaipur), said, “There’s only one rule that applies in such a scenario: The employer needs to be calm and then politely reply to such an allegation.” Sharma said the employer needs to rise above the negativity as mudslinging in public will only lead to more adverse employer branding.

“Issuing a public threat to ex-employees further dents the confidence of potential employees and hence companies need to avoid any such negative moves. The company at this point is under a lot of scrutiny from current employees, future employees, shareholders, consumers as well as the media. Therefore, during this time it’s important to respond immediately but only after contemplating and reviewing the entire issue wisely,” Sharma added.