Pros and Cons When it Comes to Being Friends With Your Boss on Facebook

I recently watched an episode of Say Yes to the Dress (give me a break, it’s my guilty pleasure show, we all have one), and when one of the brides listed the members of her entourage that were there to help her pick out her gown, in addition to the usual mom, sister, and grandmother, she said her boss.  I had to rewind to confirm that I heard right and I did, her boss was there.

Let me tell you, I like my boss and in fact I think I like her more than most people like their direct supervisors, but I don’t think we will ever be at the point in our relationship where I would bring her with me to shop for my wedding dress.

We have a great working relationship and we enjoy catching up about the newest restaurants we’ve tried, movie we’ve seen, or jeans we’ve bought on sale, but there comes a point where you have to draw the line between personal and business.  But thanks to the world of social networking, it’s even harder for employees to escape their employer on their personal time. 

While Facebook started out as a site for college students to make connections, it is no longer opened only to an exclusive group, but rather it has been expanded to everyone and their mother (literally).  But mom’s aren’t the only late adopters of the addicting time suck known as Facebook—so are our bosses, and who can blame them, they should be able to play FarmVille too! 

When you first create your account it starts out as harmless fun of sharing pictures and cyber stalking your old college roommate, but the day will inevitable arrive when you receive that automated email that informs you that your boss wants to be friends with you on Facebook.  Now your mouse will linger over that Confirm Friend button while you weigh the pros and cons of taking your relationship with your boss to that next level, but you should be happy to know that you’re not alone.

Recently, more than 4,100 business professionals across the Beyond.com Network of thousands of niche career sites were asked, “Would you be friends with your boss on Facebook?” and more than 51 percent said “No way!”  So if you end up rejecting your boss, don’t sweat it, you’re not the only one.

But should we be so quick to reject them?  Here are the pros and cons when it comes to being friends with your boss on facebook.

Pros:

• It can bring you and your boss closer together knowing that you have things in common outside of the work place. 
  
  

• Show your boss you have a life outside of work.  This can help score you some extra time to cultivate your work/life balance. 
  
  
• You can get the best of both worlds.  Show your boss a little love by accepting the friend request, but use the privacy controls and friend lists to make sure they don’t see anything that could be used against you.
  
  
• Clean up your account—after all nothing online is truly private so this could be just the thing you need to clean up your “digital dirt”.
  
  

Cons:

• Even if your Facebook account is “clean” does your boss really need to know what you did on your “sick days?” 
  
  
• If your account isn’t “clean”, it could cost you your job, even if you’re not the one to post something incriminating. 
  
  
• By friending your boss you’re likely to be more reserved in your posts.  And by more reserved we mean less fun.
  
  
• Several bosses have admitted to friending their employees to keep tabs on them during the work day to ensure they’re on task. 
  
  
• Does your boss really need to know the real reason why you’re dragging today?  It’s not just because it’s a Monday, but rather that you decided to continue the “Sunday Fun Day” celebration into the wee hours of the morning.
  
  
• The closer a boss gets to subordinates, the more problems can crop up. Think about how Michael Scott from The Office runs the show, he’s famous for saying, “I guess the atmosphere that I've tried  to create here is that I'm a friend first and a boss second,” and we all know how well that’s goes. 
  
  

Overall, it is probably healthiest to keep your relationship with your boss professional and instead of friending them on Facebook connect with them on LinkedIn.  But if you are in fact real-life friends with your boss go for it, just be aware that what you post and what your friends post will be seen by the person that ensures you receive a paycheck (that is of course if you don’t limit their access to your profile).

So should you be friends with your boss on Facebook?  We want to hear from you!