Social media and bringing the employer into disrepute

Wednesday 14 July 2021

Following England’s defeat in the European Championship final on Sunday, the news cycle has been dominated by the racist abuse players have received on social media. The most prominent case to hit the headlines is that of a Savills estate agent manager who tweeted racist abuse about players in the team.

Although the employee in question made this tweet from a personal account and not in the course of his employment, it was not long before Twitter users tracked him down and identified him as an employee of Savills. Consequently, Savills received numerous messages concerning their employee’s tweets and demanding that Savills take action.

Savills was quick to act, suspending the employee in question and publishing a statement saying that it “abhors and has zero tolerance to any form of racism and racial discrimination and is appalled by the racist comments in these tweets”.

But, in respect of disciplinary sanctions, what can an employer do in these circumstances?

Most companies will have a social media policy, which sets out what is and is not acceptable behaviour on social media at work. Employees who are in breach of the policy can be subject to disciplinary action. In circumstances where the offending social media conduct was outside of work time and unrelated to work, it is often still possible to justify disciplinary action. Needless to say, in either case the employer still needs to conduct a thorough investigation and disciplinary process before issuing any disciplinary sanction.

An important concept is in this situation is that of ‘bringing the employer into disrepute’. Simply making comments on social media may not be enough to justify the employer’s intrusion into the employee’s private life by dealing with them as part of a disciplinary process. However, if the employee’s behaviour outside of work was such that it has or reasonably could damage the reputation and business of their employer, this can give the employer reasonable cause to commence disciplinary action and, potentially, to impose the most severe disciplinary sanction, that of dismissal.

This is not as straightforward as it may seem and there are a lot of factors to consider. For instance, how serious were the comments? Did the employee identify themselves as being employed by the employer? Who saw the tweets? Was there any evidence of actual or potential damage to the employer’s reputation? It is important to note that an employer disagreeing or being upset about an employee’s comments will not be enough, it needs to show reputational damage occurred or was likely.

What happened to the employee?

In this case Savills appear to be taking appropriate steps by suspending the employee and following its disciplinary procedure. Whilst it remains to be seen whether the employee in question will be dismissed at the conclusion of this process, the adverse publicity which Savills has already received as a result of his personal tweets and the actual damage it will have caused to the business will no doubt be a key issue.

If you have any questions about social media and bringing an employer into disrepute, please email or call our Employment Law team today on 0113 207 0000.