How 'Free Time' Can Cost Millions

While employees are clearly entitled to privacy when they're involved in activities outside the normal scope of their jobs, there are times when those activities cross the line from being personal to representing legitimate concerns for employers.

Charlie Sheen's "winning" antics bring to the forefront the impact of employee behavior on organizations, says Pamela Gilchrist, chief strategist at, a business-communication and consulting firm in Cincinnati. But employers don't have to have celebrities like Sheen on their payrolls to attract undue -- and negative -- attention, or to have legitimate concerns about how employees' off-duty behaviors could negatively impact their reputations.

Sheila Addison, a former assistant professor of psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, Calif., had a side job performing as Professor Shimmy at the Hubba Hubba Revue, a burlesque show in San Francisco. While Addison performed on her own time and didn't publicize or communicate about her affiliation with JFK in any way, she was terminated for bringing "public disrespect, contempt and ridicule to the university."

Addison is appealing the termination. Her attorney, Greg Groeneveld, told InsideHigherED : "This is about the right of college and graduate school faculty to engage in artistic and political activity on their own time."

Teachers are certainly not the only professionals whose off-duty behavior has the potential to create embarrassment, concern or negative PR for the organizations they work for. In 2009, two off-duty FDNY EMS workers sat enjoying their break at a Brooklyn coffee shop and refused to help a pregnant employee who collapsed while they were drinking their coffee. She, and her baby, later died at Long Island College Hospital.

The EMS workers were both suspended, and one was recently killed in a parking-space dispute, while the other was recently suspended again after being arrested on a petty larceny charge.

While this situation illustrates an extreme case, companies across the country are increasingly concerned about the impact of their employees' off-duty behaviors on the reputations of their organizations.

Legitimate Employer Concerns

Of course, companies have always been concerned about protecting their images and brand identities. Those concerns have become heightened in the 21st century as employees' actions and behaviors are no longer confined to a few observers, but may well be broadcast -- literally -- to millions of people around the globe.

While employees are clearly entitled to privacy when they're involved in activities outside the normal scope of their jobs, there are times when those activities cross the line from being personal to representing legitimate concerns for employers.

Teasing out the legitimacy of these concerns may be difficult, but "there are things that you can do outside of hours that can bring grave concern to a company and those are things that HR executives need to be concerned about," says Tom Armour, co-developer of the Toronto-based High Return Selection recruiting system.

As an HR executive, Armour says he has dealt with many after-hours embarrassments -- from the use (and overuse) of alcohol and drugs, to the hacking of competitors' websites.

Aleicia Latimer, associate general counsel and risk-claims manager at AlphaStaff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., says these types of embarrassments are most likely to occur if employees can be in some way tied to the company -- for instance, if they're in public, wearing their name tag or a uniform, or if they're participating in an event on behalf of the company.

But even those employees engaging in activities outside of the workplace without attempting to identify themselves or their connection with their employer may create problems, as Addison's burlesque performances illustrate.

It is that potential to bring media attention and the resultant embarrassment or "bad press" to an organization, however it may occur, that really keeps HR professionals and business leaders up at night in terms of the things that their employees do when not "on the clock."

Hiring and Orientation

What can organizations do to avoid this potentially explosive landmine?

"I find that prevention is the best medicine," says Armour. "You need to engage in recruitment procedures that put integrity and values first and foremost. It's pretty easy to validate whether someone is smart or not, or capable or not. The show stopper is whether they are a person of integrity and strong values. That's what screening processes need to put first and foremost."

Once employees are on board, they need to be immediately informed of the organization's expectations. "Organizations may want to include basic morals, values, ethics and etiquette guidelines as part of any new employee-orientation program as we can no longer assume that new employees come with these skills," says Gilchrist.

Generally, says Latimer, the message to employees should be something like: "We ask that you carry yourself in a manner that is consistent with our code of conduct. We ask that you not do anything that would cause yourself or your company any reputational harm."

In addition to the hiring and orientation process, these messages need to be communicated throughout an employee's employment cycle through a variety of means, starting with policies that clearly outline expectations and repercussions for failing to meet those expectations. The employee handbook is another obvious place to include information about expectations, but that is not enough, notes Latimer.

"Reinforce [these expectations] in all of your handbooks, through general e-mails, through postings on the intranet, on corkboards where you have all of your standard posters, in any trainings and in initial employee orientation. Have your managers reinforce in their employee meetings. There's plenty of opportunity to do this."

Policies and Codes of Conduct

Having a policy, or policies, in place to clearly convey to employees how their behaviors -- even outside of the workplace -- might negatively impact the workplace, and the potential ramifications to them if this should happen, is critical.

"I would recommend to any HR executive to think about some of the worst-case scenarios right up front," says Armour. "Think about how the company would feel when there's an article in the New York Times -- or your local paper -- and think about what kind of damage control would be required. Then, think backwards, to start to put preventive measures into place."

Of course, says Leigh Steere, co-founder of Managing People Better, LLC, in Boulder, Colo., it is unlikely that employers will be able to consider every possible situation that might occur. "Policies need to be broad enough to allow an employer to respond to any damaging behavior," she says.

She recalls a situation in a prior job in which an employee took a customer to a gentleman's club after business hours and submitted the club fees on an expense report. "I do not believe we had a specific written policy on gentleman's clubs, but the lack of discretion on the employees' part was inarguable and resulted in termination of employment."

Policies now also need to include consideration of social media and its potential impacts, says Eugene Pettis, managing partner with the law firm of Haliczer Pettis & Schwamm, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Orlando, Fla.

He recommends having a separate policy, specifically related to employee activities on social media, and that the policy include the right to inspect an employee's work computer and other work-related equipment (e.g., mobile phones). "Then, if you have a situation that arises, you have a foundation upon which you can discipline," he says. "Otherwise you're going to expose yourself to the invasion of privacy and the various claims that may come with that."

Policies should be very specific and employees should be required to literally sign off acknowledging that they've received and understand the policy. But, having policies is not enough, says Pettis. Effective implementation requires communication, training and discussions of expectations with employees. "If you haven't done that, then it's really worth zero."

Immediate, Consistent Action

"I think the first, and most important, communication should be with managers," says Latimer. "Make sure they understand their responsibilities -- 'manager' is not just a title and a bump in pay." Managers must be very familiar with the code of conduct and prepared to enforce it with all employees. Ensuring that managers and other organizational leaders are prepared to immediately and consistently take action to enforce those policies is critical.

"You want to act on something as soon as you hear about it, even if you're walking past the break room and you overhear something," says Latimer. "It's best to investigate and document your investigation, just in case." In addition to sending a clear message to employees that policies will be enforced, failure to investigate could come back to haunt employers later because they "could potentially lose legal defenses," she says.

Finally, says Latimer, employers must be consistent in their approach to incidents of employee behavior that are in violation of their codes of conduct or policies.

"If you're going to implement a certain type of disciplinary action, be prepared to implement that action for every individual thereafter; otherwise, you're going to run into other issues -- potential discrimination or disparate-impact issues," she says.