The basic rundown is that British music retail chain HMV has lost much of their business to downloaded music and filed for bankruptcy in early January. As a result large numbers of jobs have been lost.
This particular incident saw 60 employees lose their jobs in what the anonymous hijacker described on Twitter as a "Mass Execution". The Twitter account was taken over and began with an introductory tweet claiming to be live from HMV's HR department.
The people who had taken over the account (which reaches out to over 60,000 followers) claimed to never normally behave like this, they simply wanted the loyal fans of the brand to understand what was happening.
Further details can be read in the article, what I would like to discuss is how social media can be abused by employees. Its common for consumers to use it as a complaints department, however employees rarely "hijack" accounts like this. I understand redundancy is a horrible thing for anyone, however with a company in bankruptcy that has had to lay off over 190 staff in recent weeks should it really come as such a surprise?
The issue is password management. Naturally the social media team needs to have access to the accounts, and consequently passwords, however the wording of the tweets suggests that multiple people were using the account. There is of course a fine line in showing obvious distrust of employees by not allowing them access to the passwords creating a very grey and fragile area. Solutions are always easier said than done. With social media now playing such a huge role in marketing strong employee/management relations have become more important than ever when the image of the entire brand is on the line.
My thoughts on possible solutions:
- Have a strategic employee management plan that professionally explains security concerns without sounding as though no employees are trusted.
- Only give passwords to senior team members and specifically state who and how many (a very limited number) within the employee management plan.
- If deciding to allow access to passwords to the majority of relevant employees have regular password changes in place.
- Have a quick moving damage control plan in place so all accounts can be blocked quickly and smoothly should an incident occur.
- Treat employees with respect and always keep them informed of trying circumstances such as potential redundancy.
