Social-media warning: be careful who your ‘friends’ are

Up to 1.6 million Australians regret having asked colleagues or their boss to be friends or connect on social media.

Adecco Group Australia & New Zealand head of marketing Lindsey Ruth.

Up to 1.6 million Australians regret having asked colleagues or their boss to be friends or connect on social media, as personal and work lives become increasingly blurred.

An Adecco study of social media in the workplace found people regret posting opinionated comments, racial slurs, and using information from posts because they can be used against them later.

It found 77 per cent of Australian workers would never invite their boss to be a friend on social media and 21 per cent would not invite a colleague.

Just more than half (56 per cent) wanted to keep work and private life separate, 25 per cent feared it would make work uncomfortable and 20 per cent feared saying something embarrassing on social media might not impress the boss.

Adecco Group Australia & New Zealand head of marketing Lindsey Ruth says adding colleagues on social media feels like a natural extension of daily life, but be careful about who you add and what you say.

EQUAL PAY DAY

With the average gender pay gap at 17.3 per cent, companies including Westpac, KPMG, Santos and WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff are working to promote parity on Equal Pay Day next Friday.

South Australian Chiefs for Gender Equity has found that rather than access to childcare being the biggest barrier to gender equity at work, staff say access to flexible work for men and women is critical.

The group says women need companies to work harder on internal cultures to stamp out ingrained and unconscious gender bias in recruitment, leave policies, job structuring, pay and opportunities for career training, progression and promotion.

The research also shows men want more chances to take on caring duties without stigma and women want to be supported to achieve leadership positions, even if they work part time or take time out.

Executive coach Kelly Magowan, author of The Busy Women’s Guide to … Salary Negotiation, will celebrate Equal Pay Day by offering Weekend Professional readers free access to her book on Amazon.

TECHNO CHANGE

The fast pace of technological change and its challenges is the theme of this year’s Creative Innovation conference in Melbourne from Thursday.

Organisers say an estimated 47 per cent of jobs will be lost because of new technology, and the conference will hear from 40 global thinkers, futurists, innovators and disrupters, business owners, government and industry leaders, calling for fresh mindsets and skills to drive growth.

Speakers will include RMIT University vice-chancellor Martin Bean, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford, NASA astrobiologist Abigail Allwood and University of Adelaide deputy vice-chancellor Tanya Monro.

ADAPT FOR FUTURE

With more than half of the Australian workforce expecting their job to be affected by digital automation or artificial intelligence, recruitment firm Hays says people need to adapt to changes to keep their jobs.

A Hays study of more than 2700 people found 52 per cent believed their job would be affected by automation and 27 per cent thought it might be.

Hays Australia and New Zealand managing director Nick Deligiannis says automation and AI have already affected workplaces and jobs from self-service check-outs to assembly lines in manufacturing plants, but he says replacing manual and repetitive tasks will leave employees free to focus on the non-routine and more advanced aspects of their job.