Media Forms, Lying on Social Media, and Constant Safety Issues

Are media release forms required?

Question:I want to post pictures on our website and social media pages of employee events and days in the office. Do I need to have employees sign a photo release form? What happens if they quit? Can I keep using their picture?

The legal side:

Yes, you should absolutely have employees sign a photo or multimedia release form before using their images in marketing materials, on your website, or on social media. The easiest time to do this is during onboarding as part of the new hire paperwork. If you make it part of your regular onboarding process, you don’t have to worry about running around to collect signatures later. 

The release should explain what types of media their image might appear in and how the images may be used. It should also give the employee the option to allow your business to continue using their image after employment ends. This is especially important. If you want the ability to continue using existing materials after someone leaves, the release should explicitly say so. Otherwise, you could end up scrambling to remove photos from online and printed materials after an employee separates. 

The human side: Beyond employee permission, try to be thoughtful about how and where photos are used. Someone may be perfectly comfortable appearing in a group holiday party photo but uncomfortable being featured prominently in an advertisement or the website. 

And while a signed release gives you legal coverage to continue using existing materials after someone leaves, there is still a practical business consideration. When a former employee leaves, it may simply make sense from a branding perspective to phase those images out over time anyway.

Need a multimedia release form? CEDR members can get one through the Solution Center. Submit a request in backstageHR.

How do I address an employee lying on social media?

Question: One of my newer employees made a social media post expressing their frustration with their manager and our office in general. The post also implies that there is a romantic relationship happening between this employee’s manager and another employee who is also in a manager’s position. It’s caused a real poop storm and I need to address it now. Both of the managers are married, so this is a serious accusation, and one that I know, or at least think I know, is not true. How do I confront the employee about her post? I really want to threaten to suspend or fire them for causing these issues or if they don’t comply.

The legal side: For the most part, employee social media activity is not something you should try to control, even when the posts are negative or reflect poorly on your business. The National Labor Relations Act protects employees’ ability to discuss workplace conditions, including frustrations with management. And this next part is particularly important – this is true even when what they say or think is going on is possibly not true. By those standards, there is not much you can do against or to force the employee to do.

With that in mind, you can still ask to discuss their concerns and the accusation. You should speak to the employee privately before making any employment decisions and give them an opportunity to explain where the information about the affair came from and even ask them why they posted about it. This conversation will help you get a sense of whether there was a valid reason for the employee’s accusation (even if it’s wrong), or if they are deliberately attempting to cause a disruption.

Your first step as a CEDR member should always be to call us first before taking any of these actions, and let us do what we do which is provide you with everything you need to start moving forward. You will be working on it within hours.

If you are not a CEDR member, you MUST contact and retain a qualified employment attorney to walk you through this issue before you do ANYTHING. This will take a couple of weeks to get your first meeting.

The human side: Employees venting online is extremely common, and simply part of doing business. Publicly implying that two married managers are having an affair is a problem and is an example of why sometimes it is not fun to be an employer. 

An accusation like this can seriously damage trust and create unnecessary tension. Not to mention the potential to negatively impact the accused both personally and professionally. 

Sometimes posts like this are a symptom of unresolved conflict or a breakdown in communication.  That does not excuse the behavior, but understanding the “why” can help you decide how to move forward. You should also consider if this is part of a larger pattern. If the employee has a history of unprofessional behavior, you may have more of a reason to take adverse action. 

How do I correct constant safety issues?

Question: I have an assistant who is friendly, reliable, and overall good at their job. The problem is they have frequent OSHA safety issues. Over the past year, they’ve had multiple needle-sticks or other issues. It seems like we are constantly sending them out for testing. How can I correct this? They are trained well. I feel like I need to warn them and document that we are trying to train and retrain them, but not sure where to start. 

The legal side: Needle-sticks are not something that should be happening regularly, and multiple incidents involving the same employee is a serious safety concern. You need to determine why this is happening before deciding how to correct it.

Is this employee receiving the same training as everyone else? Are other employees also experiencing needle-sticks, or is this issue isolated to one person? We are going to assume you are not seeing similar mistakes across multiple employees, which would point to a broader training or process problem that needs to be addressed office-wide. If this employee is the outlier, then the issue is that they are failing to perform an essential function of their job. 

You can, and should, absolutely document and address repeated safety violations, especially when patient and employee safety are involved. 

It’s important to note that needle-sticks are technically workplace injuries, meaning they temporarily put the employee into a protected class. Employers cannot retaliate against employees for filing, or having the potential to file, a workers’ compensation claim. 

But frankly, that is the least of your concerns and good documentation and warnings can greatly mitigate that concern if you need to let them go. You need to discipline the employee, and your documentation needs to be extremely solid so it is clear the issue is unsafe performance, not retaliation for reporting an injury. 

The human side: We understand that when there are issues with someone you can normally count on, it can make the conversation harder. But multiple needle-sticks in a year is not something you can simply hope improves on its own. We work with thousands of practices with a combined total of more than 40,000 employees and multiple needle sticks is not a common issue.

That said, you don’t have to jump directly into a corrective action without giving the employee an opportunity to address the issue themselves. A conversation with them can also help clarify why the issue is happening. Are they distracted about other things? Are they nervous around certain procedures despite proper training? You should be clear when speaking with them that you appreciate them as an employee and want to see them succeed, but this issue cannot continue. 

If you don’t see any improvement after addressing this with the employee directly, progressive corrective coaching is appropriate, up to termination. You should document any conversations you have with the employee about this issue and any training or additional education that is provided. This is again, something we can help you with as a CEDR member. 

CEDR’s software makes this easy. All you have to do is log into backstageHR and use the “add a note” function in the employee’s Vault. The note will automatically be stored in the employee’s file.

If the employee is trained and you have documented it well, you are going to need to let them go at some point for not following safety protocols and do so for their own protection as well as yours.