Page 12 - CIMA SCS Workbook August 2018 - Day 2 Suggested Solutions

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

CHAPTER NINE

EXERCISE 1

Briefing paper

To: Board of FNG
From: Senior manager
Subject: Social Media

Ethical issues

FNG has a duty of care to our employees to train them to carry out their job effectively. I do not
believe that we have achieved this in this instance. We must investigate if the claims made by the
Wilma Shelf are true, as she could be merely making an excuse for her poor behaviour. But if we
find out that journalists were not fully informed or provided with sufficient guidance regarding
this initiative and that they have been over-worked or not given appropriate guidance and
support, then this is lack of professional competence on our behalf.

The journalist in question did not act with the correct level of professional behaviour in her
responses to the attendees from her Twitter account. She lacked integrity and objectivity in her
responses and in her manner of communicating to them. There is no excuse for these kinds of
comments, whatever the pressure she was under. It is certainly not acceptable, particularly if she
carries the FNG brand on her twitter account. It goes against our CSR policy for business ethics,
although we may need to update this to include social media.

From what you’ve said it sounds like Guy Lomas is advocating terminating Wilma’s employment
with FNG. We must investigate this situation before we terminate the employment of this staff
member. It could be considered as gross professional misconduct, but we must find out the
opinion of other FNG journalists taking part in the scheme as to whether her claims about lack of
guidance are true.

We must also consider how any trade union will react as Wilma is no doubt a member, if they feel
in any way that we have contributed to this out of character reaction then they could make life
very difficult for FNG if we were to pursue dismissal under gross professional misconduct.
If we do not operate a Twitter usage policy and have no training on this as a communication tool,
then this is a significant weakness in our training programme and we must immediately instigate a
social media usage policy and guidance to all staff.

Benefits of social media as a business communication tool

Social media can help us to generate a huge amount of data about FNG’s readers. Social media
activity could provide us with some very useful information about our customers, such as who
they are, what they like, and how they feel about our brand. If we can actively engage with them
and listen to their comments and responses, we can gather relevant customer data and use that
information to make improved business decisions, producing more relevant articles.

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