What Can I Do If a Former Employee Won’t Give Up Control of Our Social Media Account?

I just discovered that a recently terminated employee has control of one of our important social media accounts. They’re resisting giving us the password and saying that the work they did on social media belongs to them. As far as we know, they did all of that work on the clock. What can we do?

Quick answer: This question comes up all the time! Based on what you’ve described, this is your business account. The employee’s work managing it does not, by itself, transfer ownership to them. You can make a clear written request for access, but recovering the account may ultimately require an attorney’s help.

The Legal Side: Giving an employee responsibility for managing a business account and growing its audience does not make the account theirs.

Because this person is no longer your employee, the immediate dispute over access has moved somewhat beyond the usual HR relationship. If a direct request doesn’t work, it may take a letter from an attorney to make clear that the former employee needs to return control. An attorney can also help you determine what other steps are appropriate.

Gather the original account records, business emails, advertising invoices and communications assigning the employee responsibility. Preserve their messages claiming ownership, too. Those records can help establish the account’s history and support your position if you need counsel’s help.

The Human Side: Start by giving the former employee a clear opportunity to return access. Make the request in writing, set a reasonable deadline, and keep the message direct and professional:

“We need to restore the practice’s administrative control of this account. Please provide the access needed to do that by [date and time]. Please don’t delete content, change account information or otherwise interfere with the account while we work this out.”

If they refuse or ignore the request, you’ll have a record that you gave them a clear chance to comply. If they’re deleting content or using the account in a way that harms the practice, preserve the evidence and contact counsel promptly. You can also continue using the platform’s official account-recovery process.

An ounce of prevention: We wanted to address this question because there are things you can do while the person managing your accounts is still your employee. Establish business accounts under an email address the business controls, and make sure you maintain administrative access. Give employees the access they need without handing over the only set of keys.

Put the responsibility in writing, too. If managing social media is part of someone’s job, add it to their job description. You can have them acknowledge the updated description in the HR Vault in backstageHR, so both of you have a record. Even a quick email or note explaining which business accounts they’re being given access to, and what they’re responsible for, is helpful.

Your employee handbook matters here as well. A clear policy on recording all time worked and getting approval for work outside scheduled hours can help establish expectations if an employee later claims they worked on your accounts off the clock. But a policy requiring advance approval doesn’t eliminate the obligation to pay for work the employer knew or should have known was performed. Address any failure to follow the policy separately from paying for the time worked.

Finally, keep more than one trusted administrator, use role-based permissions rather than shared passwords when available, and document what must happen to access when employment ends. These steps put you in a much better position to establish the account’s history and regain control if the relationship goes sideways.