Bank Alafalah has fired an employee for abusing a journalist on Twitter.
The employee, Fazeel Tajammul, was the Unit Head Financial Reporting at the bank. He was reported by the renowned journalist, Hasan Zaidi, on Twitter.
Two days ago, a feud started on Twitter when journalist Hasan Zaidi was abused by a Fazeel Tajammul on his tweet. Fazeel used abusive language while responding to Zaidi’s tweet.
Zaidi checked the man’s profile to know his whereabouts and found out he was a chartered accountant. He asked his followers about the firm Tajammul worked for so that he could ‘write to his bosses.’
Later, Zaidi found out that Tajammul worked as Unit Head Financial Reporting at Bank Alfalah Limited. He directly addressed the bank and asked whether they had any code of conduct regarding their employees’ behavior.
Other Twitter users also jumped in to criticize Tajammul as well as Bank Alfalah. Soon, #BoycottBankAlfalah started trending on the social media platform. The users found some other offensive posts by Tajammul and asked whether the bank conducted any background check on the employees.
The backlash ensued an official statement from Bank Alfalah, stating that it had taken the ‘appropriate action’ against the concerned employee.
Many people appreciated the move and Zaidi even thanked the bank for taking notice of the issue.
However, other people criticized Zaidi as well as Bank Alfalah for the move, calling it unfair. Many people said that Zaidi had used his influence and power to have his way, specially since he mentioned that he knew Bank Alfalah’s CEO. Some are even asking Dawn to fire Zaidi too, as he himself uses crude language for criticism.
Let’s make some things clear: using abusive language is wrong and people who engage in such behavior need to be called out.
However, the question is that is it fair for an employer to sack their employee for comments they made on their own time? Tajammul had commented from his personal account and he was not representing Bank Alfalah at the time of his tweet. It also bears mentioning that Pakistan’s labor laws say that the employer is accountable for his employee only during the work hours.
However, nothing protects an employee from ramifications of public comments if they violate a company’s code of conduct. Social media is public and you simply cannot go running around using vile language and expect no repercussions especially if are going against a code of conduct you agreed to follow when you signed a contract with an employer.
Of course, the specifics and leniency of the code of conduct may vary for different organizations. But just maybe, it’s better to err on the side of caution and not call people’s mothers prostitutes lest you get a disproportionate response from someone with better connections than yourself.
Not too much to ask in our opinion since we could all do with being nicer to each other on social media.
We quite like this thread on Twitter which aptly sums up the conversation around the subject.
So was it an ego trip or just desserts? Is the move justified? What do you think?
