The Hillsdale City Council voted to pass a new social media policy for city employees at its Feb. 15 meeting, although both the council and the public expressed a general dislike for the policy’s wording. The policy permits the city government to fire any employee who speaks inappropriately on social media.
Hillsdale City Attorney Tom Thompson said the policy is intended to make employees aware of the consequences of criticizing city government.
While the council agreed it was necessary to have such a policy, council members disagreed over its wording.
Councilman Brian Watkins said the policy ought to be reworded, but he felt the city should implement the policy even if it was not perfect.
“Having a policy in place is super important,” he said. “I’m in favor of clarifying the wording later on, but it’s good at least to have one right now.”
Watkins reminded the council that the city is a municipal corporation and should therefore adopt a social media policy like those in private corporations. He used the example of Toyota Motor Corporation to clarify his point.
“Aside from there being no references to elected and appointed officials, their policy is basically the same thing as ours. Only the wording was much more clear and positive,” Watkins said. “As elected officials, we’re only held accountable by the people for the most part. At the same time, from an employee standpoint, it’s a little different. You don’t want your employees bad-mouthing your company, whether it be the city of Hillsdale or a car manufacturer. There should be consequences for employees that do.”
He suggested the council adopt a more encouraging policy in the future so employees will not feel restrained by the policy.
“The biggest issues with our policy are the confusing and unfriendly wording,” he said. “The intent of the policy is not to find a way to fire somebody, but to express the guidelines for ‘what we expect of you as an employer’ and ‘this is what we hope you’ll do whether elected or appointed.’”
Cambria Township resident Jeff King said the policy could be inadvertently detrimental to city employees because of its wording, especially with regards to how employees can be fired for using the city’s logo or images of city officials in an unauthorized fashion.
“There’s no need to rush this policy,” King said. “I recently posted a link to a Hillsdale News article on Facebook. You think that’d be fine. But immediately it came up with a picture of city manager Mackie. If I was a city employee, I could be fired for using his image in an unauthorized way. That’s not right.”
Councilman Bruce Sharp said the practice of using social media inherently leads to dispute. He disavowed the medium entirely and said people should always communicate in more traditional ways because the way people often post on social media causes a snowball effect of unnecessary arguments and confusion.
“It’s like what Dr. King said,” he said. “Stub your toe and next thing you know, you’re having it amputated.”