Ethics in Organizational Culture

Ethics in Organizational Culture Many organizations are requesting that prospective job applicants reveal their Facebook passwords as part of the process of vetting candidates. Given that the current job market is a 'buyer's market,' employers have a great deal of leverage in expanding the type of information they may request from prospective job applicants.

From the perspective of the employer, such a violation of a candidate's privacy allows them to find out if the information that the candidate submitted on his or her resume was accurate, and also to discern potentially revelatory aspects of the candidate's life (such as sexual orientation, marital status, the desire to have children, and other factors) that cannot be asked in an interview according to the law.

In the case of some jobs, such as those in which national security is at stake, this intrusion into employees' private lives is expected. However, for routine jobs both the ethics and the constitutionality of such an intrusion is highly suspect. Additionally, it violates the privacy of the job-seeker's Facebook friends as well as the candidate's Constitutional rights. Recently, the U.S.

Congress has begun to consider passing the Password Protection Act of 2012, "which would make it illegal federally for employers to dig into the private parts of a person's social networking account" (Hill 2012). For example, in the case of one job-seeker applying for a job as a crisis therapist, she was subject to a background check by the sheriff's office, which collaborated with the nonprofit for which she wished to work. She was ordered to submit her Facebook password as part of her application background check.

After this experience, "she's now worried about putting anything in a digital message. 'Do we go back to writing in our paper diaries and hiding them under our beds?'" she asked (Hill 2012) Employers at nonprofits and government organizations might claim that they need such additional information to ensure that candidates do not embarrass the organization. However, certain parts of most Facebook profiles are public, and employers are already well within their rights to Google the names of candidates. This is also within the rights of private citizens.

But provided that the candidates take due diligence to hide certain aspects of their social media persona from the public, employers have no reasonable right to claim the need to know what is going on 'behind closed doors.' In the case of the candidate for the counseling position, she was refused the job because she had posted a private message to a colleague complaining about a former employer.

Such a note, in the pre-online world, would have been inaccessible to a potential employer, and was sent in such a manner that it was private. It is conceivable that an employee engaged in a humorous exchange with a friend could be misinterpreted -- or even an employee who agreed with a friend online simply not to get in an argument could lose a potential job. "With few exceptions, employers do not have the need or the right to demand access to applicants' private, password-protected information.

This legislation, which I am proud to introduce, ensures that employees and job.