A "Trust-busting" Hiring Practice: When Employers Ask for Facebook Passwords

There have been a number of articles about the practice of employers asking job seekers for their Facebook login information (Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords) in order to check into their backgrounds. This is, in my opinion, a reprehensible practice.

In addition to privacy issues (which have been discussed widely in the press), I see this as an egregious violation of trust. When employers ask for Facebook login information they are, in effect, saying to prospective employers, "We are requesting you to break your promise." 

Let me explain.

When I signed up to use Facebook, I agreed to their Terms of Service (TOS) which includes, under Section 4 (Registration and Account Security): "You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account." The issue here is safety and privacy. I need to trust that Facebook is doing all it can to protect me. In return, they are trusting me to be a responsible member of their community. In other words, we made promises to each other to behave in a trustworthy manner.

Thus, when a prospective employer says to someone, "Give us your password,"  they are also saying, "We have no respect  for any prior agreement you have made with anyone else. Do what we ask or you won't have a job." Quite simply, this is an attempt to bully someone into breaking a promise.

Even worse, the employer is announcing to the entire world, "We are an untrustworthy organization: our word is NOT our bond."

Facebook's TOS includes, under Section 3 (Safety), the following: "You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else." A prospective employer that signs up for Facebook with the intent of asking (prospective) employees for their passwords is doing so with the willful intent to violate the TOS. Again, that hardly inspires trust.  Who would want to do business with such an organization? Would you feel comfortable being one of their customers?

Finally, let's consider the impact of this "trust-busting" hiring practice on employee satisfaction.  As the graphic below demonstrates, nine out of ten employees (91%) define true success as being trusted to get a job done, surpassing fulfillment from money or a title. My guess, an employer who goes about destroying trust by asking employees for their passwords probably has a lot of disgruntled employees!

Click on slide to enlarge

'Nuff said!

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Trust and Keeping Promises

Yesterday, I hosted a meeting of Chapter Relations Professionals on the topic of building trust with chapters. One of the participants noted the following pattern that occurred at her old association:

The HQ would roll out a new program or service for their chapters which was well received. However, the HQ would then often decide, a couple of years later, that they would no longer be able to offer the program. Naturally, the chapters became distrustful when, at a later date, the association rolled out new programs. The chapters were unwilling to commit their time and energy to the new programs for fear they would be discontinued in the near future. Who could blame them?

All of this reminded me of a quote I read in the book Performance Management by Aubrey C. Daniels:

"Trust is measured behaviorally by the correlation between antecedents and consequences. In other words, those who always do what they say are trusted; those who do no are not trusted...An unkept promise by a manager causes the person not only to distrust the manager but the company as well."

The Bottom-Line: Every time an association rolls out a new program or service - be it for its chapters or its members - it is making a promise. To keep that promise, the association needs to be committed to the program over the long haul.

'nuff said!

Get In Sync with Your Volunteers

In theory, volunteers and staff should be collaborators or partners in helping to meet the goals and mission of the organization. All too often, we fall short of this ideal. To promote a greater harmony and a higher level of collaborative performance, I submit the following set of questions for you and your volunteers to explore together:

Is There Clarity Before We Proceed? Are we in agreement on what is most important? What is at stake? Why is the work of this committee or task force important? What are the consequences if either volunteers and staff fail to do their job? Do we (i.e., volunteers and staff) have the information and facts necessary to make good decisions? Have both volunteers and staff had the chance to say, “These are the major questions and concerns I have going forward”?

Do We Know What Success Looks Like? Does everyone buy into it? Do volunteers and staff share the same vision? Is everyone committed to it? Can we articulate our goal with with the following statement? “By next year, this committee must accomplish _____.  The reason we must accomplish this is because _____ ! “(i.e., a reason that is compelling and motivating to volunteers and staff)

Do We Have a “Hit-The-Ground-Running Action Plan?” Can we turn words into action?  Do we have an action plan with no more than a few priorities/tasks? Do the action steps in our plan meet the criteria below? Feasibility:  The proposed action item is “doable” – there are sufficient resources, time and staffing to accomplish this (and do it well). Impact: The action item will have a positive and meaningful result, the type of outcome volunteers and staff will agree, “Yes, that was worth doing.” Are there clear role definitions among volunteers and staff? What is it that only the volunteers can and should do? What is it that only staff can and should do? What are the areas where volunteers and staff need to collaborate? Is it clear how this collaboration will be managed?

You will notice the important phrase here is, "Volunteers and staff." On second thought, let's make the phrase, "Volunteers  AND  staff."

'nuff said!

An Interesting Fact about Trust

I have been writing (okay, proselytizing!) about trust quite a bit. So here's an important fact about trust and why it just might be really, really important: Nine out of ten employees (91%) define true success as being trusted to get a job done, surpassing fulfillment from money or a title.

This was from The 2001 Randstad North American Employee Review; trust was identified as the number one element driving employee satisfaction.

Click on slide to enlarge

'nuff said!

Is a Trust-Based Partnership Possible with Your Chapter?

Look at the diagram below. Which relationship type best characterizes the situation in your association between HQ and its chapters?

 

Relationship Type	Characteristics
PARTNERSHIP	Both parties display trust, highly invested in the “good of the whole,” seeks high performance and innovation.
CORDIAL COOPERATION	Both parties get along with each other. Friendly on surface, but no real depth or commitment in their ability to collaborate.
ADVERSARIAL	Both parties distrust each other. There is gossip, sabotage, low performance

Chances are, many readers of this article will sigh and then mutter, “I wish there was a true partnership between us and the chapters, but after so many years and given all the ups and downs in our relationship…”

 

“…in the last four months we’ve actually been partners.”

Take heart for it is possible to move from the “red” or “yellow” zones to the green zone on the chart. That’s a lesson I learned from Bob Foxworthy, developer of Trust-Based Leadership (with whom I had the pleasure of working on a project for the City of Fairfax Police Department).

Bob is best known for his work in building a partnership between Tropicana and CSX railroad. This case was discussed in Monty Roberts Horse Sense for People. Monty is a world famous horse trainer whose “Join up” technique with horses has been a model for strengthening relationships in the workplace. Many companies, including Abbot Laboratories, Volkswagen, AT&T, Toyota and Disney have studied Monty’s techniques for use in their organizations.

Now, back to the Tropicana/ CSX partnership…This is the story of a turnaround in a 28-year, bad-business “marriage.”  Orange juice, being a perishable product, must be shipped quickly from Tropicana’s processing plants to their distribution centers. Over a 28-year period, Tropicana had been dependent on the rail carrier CSX for those deliveries. For a variety of reasons, it had not been a good relationship.

With Bob Foxworthy’s help, management at both companies formed a Partnership Committee to build trust and focus on performance improvements. I know many readers will groan and say, “Another committee, big deal!” However, the results were impressive:

• In the first year, they realized $0.8 millions in increased revenue for CSX and reduced costs for Tropicana. 
•  Increased the number of railcars shipped out the Bradenton plant by 50%. 
• Established a high-speed, cross-country delivery system cutting delivery time from 12-to-14 days to seven days.

The keys to their success included:

• Information was shared openly so both companies can thoroughly understand each other’s business – “nothing is sacred.” 
•  Partnership Committee members were given training in the principles and practices of trust-building (i.e., they were given the necessary skills and tool-kit for practical application). 
•  As part of the Partnership practices, all employee of either company could “catch someone doing something right” and present them with a peer award. 
•  They developed a “scorecard” so they had metrics: that way they could track success, levels of perceived trust, etc. In other words, they adhered to the maxim: if you want more of something, measure it.

Simply put, they took a systematic approach to repairing and building trust. Four months into the process, Gene Zvolensky of Tropicana addressed a meeting with representatives from both companies. “We’ve been doing business with you for twenty-eight years,” he said to his CSX colleagues. “And in the last four months we’ve actually been partners.”

The Bottom-Line:  This story serves as proof that it is possible to achieve a trust-based partnership, even after years of poor relationships. If Tropicana and CSX were able to do it, then there's hope for your association and its chapters.