Racist Tweets

A member of staff has been making racist comments on Twitter. It is her personal account but it identifies her as working here. Can we discipline her?

Establish whether this breaches any of your existing policies. Although the employee was using his personal account her behaviour may still be caught by your discrimination and harassment policy (if it is sufficiently widely drawn) or by the general law against conduct bringing the employer into disrepute.

An employment tribunal is still likely to consider disciplinary action justified because of the connection with work and the serious nature of the conduct. There is a good chance that even a dismissal would be considered to be fair, provided that a proper procedure, including an investigation of the relevant facts, a fair hearing and the right of appeal, had been followed.

Your focus should be on ensuring that any disciplinary action you take is procedurally fair. Also you should draft and implement a clear policy which sets out the rules for employees using social networking. Provided you apply that policy fairly and consistently there will be very little scope for a successful tribunal claim in future.