We have an employee on sick leave but colleagues are complaining about Facebook postings (doing zumba but out with back injury) as seen by friends but we, the employer, cannot access. Is it reasonable to call the employee in for a disciplinary meeting?

If the employee’s Facebook/social media page is publically available through online searching, there is nothing to prevent the employer using information posted by the employee as a basis to initiate an investigation or disciplinary process where warranted. If the employee’s social media pages are not publically available, but such information is available to co-workers, then it is necessary to ask the relevant employees to print off the relevant posts and to make them available for the purposes of the investigation. The employee’s right to privacy is not affected by this.

If the employer intends to rely on the complaints or allegations of colleagues, then it is important that the employer