Rep. Weiner decided to come clean and admit the Tweet and attached picture he sent to a woman was sent by him and of him. According to CNN, Weiner’s communications were not limited to one woman and took place with several over the last three years. I’ll spare you the salacious details and pose the following question: If Weiner worked for you what would you do?
One of the issues that jumps out is whether Weiner improperly used government resources for his communications. He addressed this during his news conference yesterday and indicated he owns his Blackberry and that:
I don’t believe that I used any government resources
If his communications are as prevalent as believed there will be additional disclosures about who was paying for his Blackberry services and whether his social media communications were conducted on platforms other than his Blackberry – i.e. a government computer.
In review of Weiner’s actions, his employer should probably be asking the following questions:
- Did Weiner improperly use company resources and time to conduct these communications?
- If so, is there a company policy against use of company resources for this type of conduct?
- Assuming there is a company social media policy in place, did Weiner violate it?
- Did his conduct violate some other type of company policy?
- Forget policies for a second, is what he did a fireable offense?
An employer would hope that a senior employee, like a Congressman, would be smart enough to avoid this type of conduct but this is wishful thinking. As a result, it is up to the employer to have in place policies that address this type of conduct and provide the basis to either terminate Weiner or reprimand him.
One thing for sure is we have not heard the last of this story. It will be interesting to see if he goes the route of the sexual addiction defense – how should the employer handle that claim?
