OLD Jayne Blog on nonprofits/ngos, communications, community engagement, volunteerism, aid & development, women's empowerment, & random thoughts

Revisiting rejecting or firing a candidate because of personal online activities

09:32, 5 October 2010

.. Posted in Volunteerism and Volunteer Management

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I blogged a while back about rejecting a candidate or firing a paid or volunteer staff person because of his or her online activities, citing a few examples of such, and it generated a lot of debate on a few online discussion groups about when a person is being personal and when a person is being public online, boundaries, written policies, etc. I've actually been talking about this since 2006, as noted in that earlier blog. Rejections and firings are happening because of a person's online activities. I have to confess that, often, I've agreed with the dismissals, because the nonprofits could verbalize very well how this activity would interfere with a person's ability to carry out their duties effectively.

Still, many nonprofit staff members I've talked with struggle with the idea of penalizing someone because of personal activity online. And I get that: no volunteer -- or paid person, for that matter -- should be fired for personal online activity unless you can clearly show how the online activity would interfere with a person's ability to carry out their duties effectively.

So - let's think about a very specific scenario. Let's pretend that Andrew Shirvell isn't the Michigan Assistant Attorney General engaged in this online activity. Let's pretend he's your:

• volunteer web master
• volunteer communications director
• on your board
• volunteer in charge of leading the orientation for all new volunteers, or
  
• volunteer who comes once a week to stuff envelopes, file documents and input data into your database or manager of your charity shop

And he's engaged in this online activity. Does his behavior matter to your nonprofit organization? Does it depend on the role he holds at your organization as a volunteer? Do you have a policy that you could point to as justification for whatever action you take?

Discuss here!
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fast Track studies Canada

09:23, 18 October 2010 .. Posted in fast Track studies Canada

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