Social Media Challenges, Employment Law and Compliance: Know How to Keep Your Call Center Thriving with Chad Richter

There has been an onset of discrimination and harassment lawsuits because of Facebook and other social media sites. Conversations happening on company time and outside the workplace can affect the call center, and there is an interplay of off-duty conduct laws. From a state perspective, enforcing the policies of social media and communication is important, but comes with challenges. What are some best practices to adopt when it relates to email, voicemail and social media outlets that employees want and try to use?



It’s crucial that call center managers know the latest and greatest policies for handling social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace as well as other social media outlets such as Twitter in the call center environment. It is important for call centers to be aware, from an employer perspective, how to measure workforce management and social media.

Chad Richter, Partner of Jackson Lewis LLP, knows the host of issues his call center clients have with social media. Richter’s phone rings off the hook. He has seen an increase in discrimination, harassment claims, disability issues, family and medical leave act issues. If you have policy or practice that aren’t compliant with federal or state law in a call center, where all of the call center employees are performing the same type of work, it is easy to misclassify the call center representatives as exempt vs. non-exempt. This breeds class action law suits.

Richter is also familiar with wage and labor issues, as is prevalent in the call center industry and beyond. Call center management comes with its own challenges and opportunities.

In this podcast Richter talks about recent developments in labor and employment law specific to the industry. He explains some preventative strategies including training programs and practices to reduce exposure to liability. Additionally, Richter addresses issues of exposure for the organization and the implications of the call center in the new age in social media.