Social evil

Attempts by a company to allow for anonymous online grievance management turns ugly

A seminar on using social media in the corporate world turned into a slanging match between a mid-level manager of a prominent Bangalore-based IT company and its HR director. Only those who were familiar with the case probably understood what was happening. But most were left wondering about the subtext to the confrontation. It was over an HR initiative some time ago that allowed employees to let off steam or log their complaints, that too anonymously, through an in-house blog. Inevitably perhaps, the exercise degenerated into a forum for spreading all sorts of canards about the company and officers responsible for policies the staff resented. What started off with a few dozen postings, ended up in a deluge that led to the company closing the blog site. The HR head who had thought of the idea almost quit as a result. Clearly, the episode exercised the manager at the seminar, who resorted to the kind of open criticism that he clearly wouldn’t have been able to air in the privacy of the company compound.