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Hi,

BLUF - Had a request to be a friend on facebook from one of my directs have accepted from another but did not think about it previously. Should I ignore or accept?

Rightly or wrongly I tend to keep facebook for personal contacts adn linked in for business contacts and have only rarely gone against.

What is your advice?

Thanks

Nige

Smacquarrie's picture

Facebook is reserved for people I personally know and associate with outside of work.
With that being said, I carefully monitor my activities with my directs and would not associate with them outside of work except in rare circumstances and even then only if other directs were involved. I do this to avoid the appearance of any impropriety.
I am friends on FB with my former manager and if I ever went back to work for him I would remove him from my friends list.
Depending on your culture, social media relationships may be more acceptable than my personal view point.

If it were me, I would decline the new and remove the old.
I hope this helps.

earlenebiggs's picture
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Would you really want your directs to have the same level of familiarity with you AND your family that your personal firends have?

If your answer to that question is no , then you have your answer.

 

SuzanneB's picture

I keep Facebook for friends and family. Not coworkers - no directs, peers, other department colleagues.

acao162's picture

I have a stern self-imposed rule about no directs and as well, no one who works in the organization. So, no to the guy who works in distribution, no to the admin who works for another department. I'm "too high up" in the org not to have some influence on employment. I broke the rule one time, deliberately, for an employee who's son is my son's best friend. We do use FB to talk kid-stuff but I can't recall the last time she 'commented' or 'liked' anything I post, outside of that.

FB has its place and the added benefit of not having your directs as FB friends means they actually have to tell me about what is going on in their lives in the O3.

greeno's picture
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Bookface hasn't made me money, or made me happy, therefore I let it go.  You should consider the same.

donm's picture
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As my subject line states, my suggestion is to ignore the facebook request. Instead, send a LinkedIn request. This shows you are not antagonistic, and still keeps the work-life boundaries in place.

Without the insult, I agree with Greeno. I have dropped Facebook entirely, and have no plans to rejoin. Gossip in the workplace should not be tolerated, and gossip in my personal life is likewise not welcome. Facebook is nothing more than gossip central, in my opinion.