Why you shouldnt add coworkers on social media?

Do you consciously think about every single thing you put on Facebook taking into consideration exactly who will be reading what you write? Do you have co-workers as Facebook friends? If so, there are many things to consider in regards to your personal and career brand when it comes to Facebook. The lack of considering anything at all can absolutely cause you to lose your job. Yet, so many people are either unaware of them or do not fully understand the ramifications of the content they might share online. For millions of people, this includes sharing their page and their personal lives with their co-workers. Many people feel that co-workers are just “buddies from work” and all is well as long as the bosses aren’t their Facebook friends. If this describes your thoughts about co-workers as Facebook friends, you may be in for a rude awakening.

Table of Contents Show

Why Move Data? (When You Don’t Have To!)
Change Your Privacy Settings
Be Aware Of The Message Your Profile Is Sending
Don't Show The Job Search Groups You've Joined
How To Utilize LinkedIn During The Job Search
Why you shouldn't add your coworkers on social media?
Should you add work colleagues on social media?
Why you shouldn't be friends with coworkers on Facebook?
Is it OK to add coworker on Instagram?

Why Co-Workers Don't Make Good Facebook Friends

As a general rule of thumb, I advise people to not invite or accept co-workers as Facebook friends unless their posts, pictures, and videos are not deeply personal and are always clean, upbeat, and in good taste. Some people do choose to invite co-workers, managers, and other professionals because they are intentionally using Facebook to leverage their career brand. This is a great way to use Facebook and I highly encourage it. However, this general rule applies to those who use Facebook for more personal use – which seems to be the majority of people. It is for those who typically friend their co-workers without much thought. I recognize that your best friend and someone you trust with your life might be your co-worker and Facebook friend. I am not necessarily talking about those people, just any co-worker who does not fall in that “best friend” category.

Does Your Facebook Content Look Like This?

“I hate Mondays," “Why am I at work when I would rather be somewhere else," “What a long day… wish it was over," “Not looking forward to going back to the grind tomorrow,” “Can’t wait to the head to the bar to get my drunk on,” "Sometimes I just want to beat the crap out of people," “I swear my life sucks,” “Why is everyone a backstabber,” or anything even remotely similar.
Drama related content – telling everyone about issues going on in your life.
Arguing or using profane language.
Videos, photos, and articles that are in bad taste (profane or sexually explicit content).
“Liking” pages that are in bad taste (ex: Yourname likes "I hate my job!")

Consider The Ramifications:

Many employees talk and gossip on a regular basis. They can’t help themselves. Who are they sharing your content with? Your boss? Another co-worker who might share it with your boss? Maybe. How do you know they aren’t? A co-worker might not intentionally share what you post but it gets out anyway due to frustration on his or her part. Typical scenario: Boss asks your co-worker to stay late to work on a project and to ask for your help. Co-worker inadvertently says, “She won’t help, she’s been posting all over Facebook how she can’t wait to get out of here to go to happy hour." The boss makes a mental note of it and considers that and other things he might have heard when evaluating your potential for advancement in the company. If you want to ever advance in a company, you should not be posting statements like that on Facebook! It gives the impression that you don’t really like your job and if you can’t tell your boss about what you just posted, don’t give anyone who can, the ability to read it. What if a co-worker Facebook friend gets promoted and now is your boss or is a manager elsewhere in the company – a person who might now have a say about your future potential with the company? The facts are, you can be a model employee at work but people typically cannot separate what they learn about on you on Facebook from your great work on the job. Careless postings on Facebook can shatter your strong career brand no matter how great your performance is at work. What if you take a sick day but you go out to lunch and then check in at the restaurant on Facebook or Foursquare, which subsequently posts on your page? Or maybe you just mention your lunch in an unrelated Facebook conversation that evening. Either way, your integrity is now in question. Situations like this can also cause you to be fired! First of all, you should never call in sick when you are not and then go somewhere. Somehow, people tend to always get caught. But if no one spotted you out there eating and shopping on your sick day, you just confessed to lying about being sick right on Facebook for all your co-worker "friends" to see. Lastly, let’s say you are at work “doing your job." But throughout the day, your Facebook page is somehow publishing a stream of updates from various games like Mafia Wars, Cityville or other games. Your co-worker Facebook friend notices this and talks about it at the water cooler. It eventually gets back to your boss. These kinds of things really do happen and this is another example of a situation that can cause you to be terminated from employment.

It’s Time For Damage Control

Regardless of this, I can’t stress enough how important it is to always act with the highest level of integrity when it comes to your work. Then, you don’t even have to read an article such as this because it would not apply to you. But outside of that, be cautious about adding co-workers to your Facebook page because if you have not yet noticed, what you do on your own time is not your own personal business anymore because when you add co-workers to your friend list, the lines between work and your personal life become blurred. And please make sure that your page is visible to friends “only.” If your page is public, anyone can read it and then it doesn’t even matter if you add co-workers to your page or not. If you have not been careful about the quality of your content and you have co-workers as Facebook friends, you should start doing a bit of damage repair. Remove controversial content and start posting good quality content on your page so the perception others have of you begins to change. After a month or two of that, I’d remove them all or simply block them from your wall and if asked, just state you want to keep your personal and professional life separate. You can put all your co-workers in a list and try to block them from individual updates as you see fit, but trust me, the time will come when you forget to do it. And, it really is much more important to have your co-workers trust and respect you than to have them as Facebook friends. Enjoy this article? You've got time for another! Check out these related articles:

How To Build Positive Workplace Relationships
5 Tips For Dealing With An Annoying Co-Worker
Why You Should Connect With Co-Workers On Social Media

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Why Move Data? (When You Don’t Have To!)

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The problem many firms face is the storage of their data in many silos and systems—clouds (lakehouses), warehouses, source systems, ODSs, CRM systems, marketing marts, and in some cases even legacy SAS files. Each of these silos introduce workflows that are necessary but increase time-to-insight. How can organizations use all their data efficiently?

The idea behind the data fabric is to break down data silos and get data into the hands of the users. The data fabric is a tapestry connecting data across all platforms to users, creating efficiencies by not having to move data. Data automation capabilities within the fabric further drive efficiencies by providing accessible, quality data for use by AI and other tasks.

One of the key enablers of a data fabric is a virtualization layer that provisions data needs directly (from transaction and operational systems) without moving or copying data. Data tasks like sourcing, extracting, cleaning/transforming, etc. are all automated. The fabric also helps manage the lifecycle of data, for example, by governing your data using active metadata to enforce the policies, including access, compliance, and quality.

In summary, data fabrics are still evolving—the architecture has merit, the concept seems more developed than that of the data mesh (which is much more of a theory), and foundational tech capabilities are well-enabled. I see fabrics as having great promise, but more as an architecture strategy with a focus on less data movement, fewer silos, more access to data, and faster analytics. Will fabrics eliminate the need to move data completely? I don’t think so (at least in the near term), as there will always be a need to move and replicate some data. Would love to hear from the vendors in the space on this post as well.

Is it data fabric or data fabrication? Only further development (and time) will tell, but I’m betting on the fabric’s promise!

I’m also betting on you, my readers—I bet that a discussion with you on this topic will surface many challenges and opportunities for data fabrics. What would you like to learn more about? What has been your experience with the data fabric? Is it fabric or fabrication? Please reply to this post with your comments so we can all dive deeper into the strategic, tactical, and business implications of this fascinating area.

Change Your Privacy Settings

It's important to adjust your privacy settings on LinkedIn if you're on the job search

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You don't need to broadcast to your network of contacts the new connections you make with recruiters and the job search groups you've joined. Place your mouse on your picture in the top right and choose Settings & Privacy. Under the Visibilitysection, go to Visibility of your LinkedIn activity and turn off the features that might notify the wrong people about your job search. Also, go to Visibility of your profile & network to turn off any additional features that could inform others that you're looking for a job.

There are a lot of subtle ways to signal to your network that you're looking for work without advertising it on your LinkedIn profile.

Be Aware Of The Message Your Profile Is Sending

Social media allows us to openly speak what we're thinking and feeling, but that doesn't mean you should advertise to everyone that you're looking for a new job or suddenly make an update that you're willing to relocate in your status or summary. Even if you think it's only going to your inner circle of friends, the word can easily spread on social networking sites. Things like "willing to relocate" are a dead giveaway.

These are details that should be left off your LinkedIn profile and saved for more personal conversations and job interviews.

Don't Show The Job Search Groups You've Joined

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When you start joining different job search groups, it is heavily hinting at your job search activity. You can continue to take advantage of using such groups, but change the settings so that the group's logo does not get displayed on your profile.

Go to the group and click the More tab followed by Your Settings in the dropdown menu. From there you can click the Visibility Settings to uncheck "Display the group logo on your profile."

How To Utilize LinkedIn During The Job Search

Young professional on laptop works actively on LinkedIn during her job search

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Now that you know what NOT to do, here's what you can do to utilize LinkedIn for your job hunt...

1. Make your profile visible to employers and recruiters. Your profile needs to be made public in order for employers and recruiters to see your information. Under Visibility of your profile & network, you can check which content on your profile is made public.

2. Don't be anonymous. When you begin to view recruiter profiles and employer contact profiles, adjust your settings so that you don't come off as "Anonymous viewed your profile." By offering your full information, it prompts the other end to take a look at your profile.

3. Accept messages. While setting up your account, indicate that you're interested in career opportunities and that you will accept messages from other members. Disabling these features means employers and recruiters will have a harder time finding and contacting you.

4. Write a profile to appeal to your current and potential employers. Your LinkedIn profile doesn't have to say, "I'm looking for a job," in order for employers to take notice of you. By simply stating your key skill sets, the value you bring, and what you have to offer, employers will see the appeal and want to contact you.

Just as the general advice goes to not quit your job before you secure a new job, you want to take every precaution possible when using LinkedIn to not impact your current job.

Need more help with your job search?

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But here's the thing, people connect with the people they work with all the time, but it's important to know who to set boundaries with. If you don't, bad things can happen — the information your reveal to the public can lead to discrimination and harassment or create awkwardness or tension at work.

Generally, there is no problem with having a colleague on social media who is a friend and knows you well. But, as a rule of thumb, it's probably best not to add people who you dislike or someone who is a senior member of staff. For more advice on life at work, check out the rest of our blogs!

Why you shouldn't be friends with coworkers on Facebook?

Don't friend co-workers you don't trust. Gen Y is known as a competitive group in the workplace, and especially in the shaky state of the job market, every employee is looking for an edge. So be careful — paranoid, even — about which co-workers you're friends with online lest a “friend” sabotages your career.

Is it OK to add coworker on Instagram?

If your Instagram account is private and you are sharing your daily activities and your family pics, it is better to not follow them. because it reflects your job and relations at work. But if it's not important for you, you can follow anyone you like.