Ex staff posting lies on social media- help please

Stressed accountant

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Hi,

 

I am a sole practitioner and struggling to employ decent staff. In early July I recruited a female that lasted 5 days- terrible attitude refusing to do some tasks, sat eating all day ( fingers foods mostly) and then touching client paperwork. Was told she could not do this, especially mid Covid and one thing led to another and she was dismissed.

A replacement started a few weeks later- fantastic CV, 20 years payroll experience, but one in approx 5 payrolls was wrong, sent multiply letters out with the wrong postage despite being shown to do it correctly, intimidating a junior staff member and basically every time I turned by back moaning about me or what she was asked to do. Paid £30k. Dismissed after 3 weeks.

Both have now taken to a Social Media platform absolutely slating me personally, with numerous lies.

I have been ill all weekend and can not cope. I know it is lies, but it also visible to anyone.

As an employer we cannot post facts about ex employees, what do I do?

 

 

Replies (18)

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By Matrix
13th Sep 2020 10:15

Sorry to hear this. This sounds like defamation and a quick search shows there are lawyers who can help. I would write a letter asking them to remove the posts or you will get your lawyers involved. If they refuse then get the lawyers to send them a letter. I expect contacting the social media platform would be a last resort.

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Psycho
By Wilson Philips
13th Sep 2020 10:24

Agreed. Although I would suggest that as a first step, depending on the platform, it might be worth reporting the posts in question (using the “report” function). After taking a screenshot for the benefit of the lawyers etc.

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By murphy1
13th Sep 2020 11:52

Thanks. The platform have refused to take the posts down.

I’m worried that if I do anything I will get more hassle- this is really affecting me mentally.

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Replying to murphy1:
Psycho
By Wilson Philips
13th Sep 2020 12:11

murphy1 wrote:

Thanks. The platform have refused to take the posts down.


Your lawyers will be happy - more work for them.

Try and take comfort in the fact that for anyone that matters they will see the posts for what they are - rants and ramblings of a disgruntled employee (and what are the chances of any such person seeing the posts in question?). Of course, should they say anything that is factually incorrect and potentially damaging to your reputation you need to get the legals involved.

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Replying to Wilson Philips:
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By johnhemming
14th Sep 2020 20:58

Defamation Act 2013 Section 5
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/5/enacted

Basically you send a notice to the website owners to find out who wrote the posts, but you cannot sue the website owners for the content.

You may have a GDPR type or harassment type cause of action, but defamation is unlikely (against the website owner).

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By Paul Crowley
13th Sep 2020 13:17

Good news is that you will not be pestered with reference requests.
In the USA they would become unemployable as USA HR people search social media before employment offers.
Keep records of the posts and any retweets
Get a large evidence base.
Your clients will know you and unlikely to credit truth to people you needed to let go, particularly if they have had soiled records and paye corrections.

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By New To Accountancy
13th Sep 2020 16:02

I know it's easy for me to say but let the dust settle and then make a decision. I had the same but my boss spoke about me to clients and the clients told me. The lies were disgusting about me and actually looking back, I think I suffered PTSD because I'd never been attacked by anybody else before. I didn't fight back or try to prove they were lies and nature had a way of showing that he was the unscrupulous person and now I hold my head up high knowing I did not say a bad word or lower myself.
You are not the only person your staff members know, they will have done things in the past that people on their social media know about, people will think bad of them for exposing you this way and not bat an eyelid. You will waste a lot of time trying to put them right or going through the legal route. You may need the legal route at some point but for now,let the dust settle and just think as soon as people read this about you, they scroll to the next person and read something about them, if you're that bad why are you still going?- that's what people will also think. You have more happy clients than you do unhappy staff.
My boss went out of business 6 months after I left, your staff will get their karma but use your time wisely don't waste it on them.You've just had a bump in the road and see this as a learning curve and maybe add a 'defamation' clause to the contract ready for the next staff member if you haven't already done so.

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By frankfx
13th Sep 2020 18:59

Take a deep breath.

They are not worth it.

PITA client comes to mind .

I am sure your other long term staff will rally.... united you stand.

Then have a word with ACAS a free service.

You may then want to craft a professional and measured response.

If only to serve as a polite warning shot , that such behaviour has consequences, and that your advisors are ready to act.
Cease and desist.
You may even invite the workers to seek thier own formal ,not internet based ,legal advice, so that they know the remedies open to you. ( are there any remedies? let them find out !)

Did you recruit through an agency?
Was the 20 year CV creditable in the circumstances and outcome you experienced ?

Did you obtain references?

By the way ,if you do speak to ACAS, enquire whether a suitable clause can be placed in a contract, enforceable, that could prevent gruntled workers turning to media?

The damage social postings can inflict should be taken seriously.

I wish you well.
You have found support on these pages.

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By seandrowe
14th Sep 2020 07:53

You need to ignore the social media posts, engaging lawyers or even contacting them will just prolong the situation.
What you should concentrate on is your recruitment and induction process so that you can try to prevent it happening again.

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Replying to seandrowe:
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By bernard michael
14th Sep 2020 10:03

Do you know who they currently work for ??
No suggestion meant but curious as to what their employer would think of the situation

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Replying to bernard michael:
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By murphy1
14th Sep 2020 10:16

No I don't unfortunately. The second one approached and existing staff member on 31 Aug and wasn't working.

The comments are on a platform for potential staff to see reviews of employers. I would expect if they weren't anonymous, they would never be employed again

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Replying to murphy1:
By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
14th Sep 2020 16:11

@murphy

if they ONLY place this is, is on a moan-fest forum, then quite frankly the chances of clients seeing this (who is the ones that matter) is negligible.

Those places are always moan-fests. Don't worry about it., id not even think of looking at such a place if applying for a job at a small employer anyway. Lets face it, its a buyer's market right now.

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By Duggimon
14th Sep 2020 09:48

Two things to keep in mind:

1: This feels awful because you see these posts in a public forum, knowing anybody at all can read them. You have to bear in mind that almost nobody does though, most people do not care at all what these people think. Don't respond or engage at all publicly as that would get more attention, just do your best to ignore it and try to content yourself knowing that most people will never see these posts and most of the people who do won't care.

2: These people, dreadful as they sound, will not just have suddenly turned dreadful. The people who read these posts and engage with these people will know full well what they are like and will either alter their perceptions accordingly, knowing they're idiots, or will be as dreadful as your former staff members. Again, not worth worrying about.

People tend to overestimate the importance of something like this, because social media is seen as an all important tool for business this day and age. It can be a very valuable tool when used by businesses, but the impact of idiot posts by idiots is, generally speaking, neither here nor there. Keep your head down and keep doing what you're good at and try to forget the whole thing.

Unless of course the slander is something particularly awful and criminal, then I might consider a lawyer, I suspect however it is just something best ignored.

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Replying to Duggimon:
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By murphy1
14th Sep 2020 10:21

Thanks. It is very upsetting as they are very personal attacks. However, anyone can actually post a review about any company, whether they worked there or not - no checks are done by this platform. Indeed, I could write one about a local competitor

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Replying to murphy1:
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By I'msorryIhaven'taclue
14th Sep 2020 14:16

Can you remove your practice from the platform? Or, alternatively, subscribe to the platform's paid service and change your preferences to eliminate staff comments and feedback? A year's paid subscription might do the trick.

Did the finger-lickin' staff member come via a bureau? If so, give the bureau some feedback about their candidate. You should be quite immune from any potential legal action from your ex-employee if you dress up the reason by emphasising the Covid-19 risk involved. No court would dare argue with that, and you'd be giving her a dose of her own medicine.

The second employee's a more difficult prospect, because let's face it getting things wrong and pushing staff around and moaning about the boss are standard traits of many employees (especially those who are unemployed and on a bureau's books). How about turning her published comments into a positive by altering your strap-line / mission statement to the effect that you yourself employ only the most capable, loyal and trustworthy of staff. That way anyone who might take notice of her comments - existing employees and prospective staff alike - will get a better perspective of your practice, and see evidence of just how you weed out unreliable staff who don't meet your exacting standards. Clients like to feel secure in the knowledge that their confidential affairs are being handled by people they can trust, and will no doubt ignore the sour grapes from those who have been weeded out.

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By coleprice
15th Sep 2020 10:04

Dugimmon's reply is spot on.

Years ago I worked for a company that hired a PR person who turned out to be a thoroughly toxic human being. When the PR person was finally sacked they went on to exactly the kind of site you described and bad-mouthed all senior staff, working practices of the company, etc. The business is still going; as far as I know the post is still up there along with all the other toxic waste. To my knowledge, its effect has been zero.

In my experience, any ex-employee with half a justification for unfair treatment goes down the tribunal route. Defamatory posts on social media are almost a confession there was no unfair treatment.

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By Alonicus
15th Sep 2020 10:40

I really feel for you. We went through this a couple of year ago, with a very disgruntled nightmare ex-employee who we'd got rid of after a very long, careful and expensive disciplinary process.

In our case, all the posts were in the form of anonymous reviews, which made things much harder as review sites generally only give out user information when ordered to do so by a court. US-based review sites are the worst, there is one in particular which never removes any review, never provides any information, and is just too expensive to sue from the UK.

The strategy we adopted was primarily platform and SEO-based.

Because of the nature of the posts (and the fact that they dragged my family into it), we reported them to the police. It's worth doing that if you consider there is even the slightest risk that things could escalate to a public confrontation if they know where you live or might bump into them in the street. They won't do anything immediately, but it means the culprits are on record.

We contacted the various review sites asking them to remove the posts under community guidelines; all the UK ones did (we had to join a couple as members, but just free membership plus a lot of marketing calls to try to persuade us to upgrade !). The two we had problems with were the aforementioned US one, and Google, who ignored their own policies and refused to remove the reviews from their search algorithm.

What we then did was go on a campaign of seeking reviews from genuine customers, starting with a few "tame" ones, on Google, Trustpilot etc. We maintained this for a while so it wasn't just an obviously artificial initial splurge, and in fact it's become a useful marketing tool. After a month or two of getting a review or two a day the offensive ones had been pushed down several pages in Google, and let's face it, how many people ever look beyond the first page ?

All in all, it is traumatic at the time, but you will come out of it a lot tougher and wiser. Hang in there !

Also, when you said "Paid £30K. Dismissed after 3 weeks" on the second one; if that was how much you paid an agency or to the employee as some kind of starting bonus, you definitely ought to look at recouping that !

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By PChapman
15th Sep 2020 10:48

I'd do nothing

These posts will soon be buried under miles of inane drivel

Oh and UK recruiters routinly check out people's SM posts too, so karma is likely

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