Many companies are still deciding whether they need to have a social media presence like a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or a YouTube channel. But every business needs to realize that, regardless of whether the company is using social media, their employees are already using them, both personally and professionally.
What's more, the potential repercussions of those employee activities are evolving on a daily basis, while most companies are sitting on personnel policies that are outdated, if they even exist.
Consider the issues that arose when two U.S. restaurant employees set up a private forum on MySpace where they made fun of their customers, coworkers, and managers. Or take the recent instance where a couple of Domino's employees filmed themselves doing gross things to food and posted it to YouTube. What they did was offensive and just downright stupid, and these employees wound up being fired.
These are extreme examples. But ask yourself these questions: Has my employer told me whether it is OK for me to take photographs/video at our place of business? Am I allowed to create a private Website that discusses customers, co-workers, and managers? You might have some assumptions and biases based on your own experiences -- but how many employees really know the answers to these questions?
Consider another example: the embarrassing case of Bob Quick, one of Britain's top counter-terrorism officials who recently resigned after he got out of a car holding some papers in plain sight -- and thus accidentally revealed a secret document to photographers. Another extreme instance, but let's bring it down to earth: Let's say you take photographs of a workplace birthday party and post them on Flickr or Facebook -- a pretty common occurrence these days. What if in the background of those photos there is a computer screen with your company's confidential financial data, and a few days later that data leads to a drop in your company's stock price?
This is no futuristic scenario; software that can recognize faces can also very easily find text in photographs. The technology exists today.
Then consider information on an employee's location. Suppose your company has a competitor in, say, Denver, and you're assigned to a sensitive client visit there -- or, more interestingly, you have a job interview with the competitor. What if in your blog or in your Twitter feed you keep mentioning that you are in Denver? What if you set up Google Latitude to broadcast your location to your friends or, as is now possible, to a blog? Google Latitude can even show the specific location, or at least the neighborhood, where you are located. Merely by sharing your location, you could be revealing a lot more than you'd like to -- and surely more than your employer would like you to.
In response to the Domino's incident, Tim McIntyre, the pizza company's VP of communications, noted in an email to a Netizen who alerted him to the situation: "The 'challenge' that comes with the freedom of the Internet is that any idiot with a camera and an Internet link can do stuff like this -- and ruin the reputation of a brand that's nearly 50 years old, and the reputations of 125,000 hard-working men and women across the nation and in 60 countries around the world."
He highlights one of the key components of social media: Anybody has a voice.
But many, many employees don't seem to know the limits of that voice; and they don't understand that technology is making it possible to turn whispers into loud, clear proclamations.
Human resources and legal departments are often accused of being all about policies -- Big Brotherish and bureaucratic policies. But when done right, formal policies can drive effective practices.
You can say that common sense is all one needs to apply to social media situations. But evidence shows that social media is growing at a pace that is so "uncommon" that common sense is lagging behind. Companies need to let folks know when and how they can use social media -- before the company becomes another example of a social media disaster!
— David Silversmith, Internet and Web analytics consultant, and former CTO of Carfax
I saw the headline of your post and, honestly, thought, "Good golly--is this another post about limiting employees' access to social neworking sites?"
So, confession over, I was very pleased and intrigued to see the angle of your post. I think it is spot on.
I teach an MBA leadership class that includes a module on Ethics. Nearly all companies have ethics policies; nearly all of those policies have yet to address social media, networking, and such.
Some of the examples you cite may not be ethical issue per se, but I think it all falls in the same area of policy. Maybe the policy, itself, should be more of a new society policy than a social networking policy because I do think that if enough attention is directed to writing a policy, h.r. types will veer to the "limit" kind of approach that I thought this post was going to take. That misses the point completely.
The point really is, if you don't want to do anything that you wouldn't be comfortable seeing on the front page of the newspaper, how does that extend to the way information is communicated in the new world? Should employees be prohibited from blogging? What is a company's liability if a post appears to speak for the company? How does a company address false posts that appear to be made on it's behalf, by, for instance competitors or angry ex-employees?
I think this issue that you raise isn't being addressed nearly enough and, certainly, so few companies have taken action that there aren't really any "Best Practices," that are easily emulated.
MShellC, Thank you for saying what needed to be said.
I remember my parents tellling me that when I stepped out of the house, I was not only representing myself, but my entire family as well. It may sound like a lot of weight to put on a child's shoulders, but it definitely serves me well today.
As we all know, your reputation in the professional world can be easily marred. I remember reading magazines about "what not to do at the company party" years ago, when the only concern was whether or not you would be the one remembered for having the proverbial "lampshade" on his/her head.
In today's world it is by far easier to slip up and damage your reputation because EVERYONE can see it if you allow it to be so. This being the case, perhaps we need to consider enlarging the idea of presenting ourselves. The person we are in real time should be reflected in the person you present online, and caution should be taken to preserve your good name.
Mabye that applies to many employees, but not most. Each company is different, as are their needs for content filtering and monitoring. Less than 10% of employees at companies I have either worked for, or with, are in constant communication with their work 24/7.
instead of thinking that employees have nothing to do so they are social networking, perhaps employers can look at it some other ways. Like this is like taking a break from left brain work and using the right brain for a bit, or that maybe they're communicating with a different generation of client in a way that is less "formal" and my actually end up cementing a more concrete bond with that client.
We have to remember that many employees (a) take business calls after hours, (b) check email from home and remote locations, and (c) have their smartphones tuned to the corporate machine just as much as their personal life. Hours they are not compensated for in direct pay.
Maybe worth taking a fresh look at it and not assuming "they're just slacking off" on the corporate dime.
Do we care if employees are wasting time at work on social networking sites instead of getting work done? That's a management issue. If I don't get 8 hours of work out of my employee for an 8-hour day, I should be interested in why.
Do we care if employees are releasing sensitive information on these social networking sites? That's a security/HR/Legal issue (depending on the content). If it's done at work, we should have the necessary logs to track it to the source. If it was sourced from the employee's personal computer, we'll likely need to get warrants.
Do we care if an employee is bad-mouthing the company, fellow workers, or customers? Yes, that's bad for business. Depending on what is said, it may be cause for legal action or just another HR issue. Either way it is bad marketing and firing the employee could just solidify the statements and create a bigger problem.
I agree with others that these issues are not new, just the means by which they are carried out have changed. If I put up posters around town badmouthing the company, it's no different. The distribution is wider on the Internet, but the incident is the same.
This is where I find so many companies have issues, and I'm probably going to ramble and go beyond replying directly to your opinion. I have seen so many cases that, even though corporate policies are clearly written and communicated, enforcing the policies through implemented technology and disciplinary action falls short. Often this is due management being too "sensitive" toward employees...not wanting to "upset" the users by suddenly removing all of the unrestricted Internet freedom they had become accustomed to.
Sometimes I have to ask "what did workers do before the Internet? Work?"
Several times, I have been involved in the task of restricting Internet access, and every time I have experienced management giving in to the unreasonable complaints of users. "If I can't access my AOL email, how will my child's teacher be able to communicate with me if they are having issues"? "I don't have a computer at home, and need to be able to access FaceBook, MySpace, etc. in order to keep in touch with my family"?
Now, as far as monitoring what employee's do with their own PC's, on their own Internet connection, on their own time...as part of policy at one company I worked for, employees agreed to not post their email address or reference where they work or what their positions is unless it is a website directly related to their career, the company's industry, a professional organization, etc.. Regular Internet searches were performed to find violations, and proper actions taken upon violations. In one particular case, someone posted on a social networking site "my work sucks and blocked my access to here, so email me at xxx@xxxxxx.com". Employee response is always interesting in these situations. "I have the right to post my email address anywhere I want, and you can't stop me...that agreement I signed doesn't mean anything". OK...fired...
To end my ramblings...the real issue I see, as with 99% of issues (security, performance, availability) is corporate management's continuous practice of not showing enough interest or support until something actually happens. Einstein's "Theory of Relative Reactionism".
An employee bad mouthing an employer is not new news... Neither are a whole host of socially inacceptable behaviors. That these activities happen online and are view by more people than those physically able to "partake" is simply a matter of scale.
An activity is either acceptable or it is not. When a corporations follies are discussed around a stereotypical water cooler, in a pub down the street, in a news editorial or a private gathering it is something that has happened as long as there have been humans. Now information like this is illustrated, vocalized, momorialized, filmed, written, or whatever online for the entire world today really has nothing to do with technology and everything to do about humanity and ignorance.
This type of situation should be a wakeup call to HR departments and anyone engaged in hiring/retaining employees.
I began my hiring career long before background checks were commonplace in everyday business. Back then we relied on recommendations, (personal and professional), informal profiling (now a semi bad word) during the interview itself, and a gut feeling for the prospective employee.
This skill set has in many ways been overtaken by technology measurements which reduces the initial cost of hire but often fails to police itself for the new opportunities and risks of technology itself.
The reason to keep a lid on social networking at work is simple... Social networking is usually not a paid position in everyday employment for most people. It is the online equivalent of chewing the fat for a majority of small business who often do not even have a technology plan in their employee handbook (if they even have a handbook).
Chris, that is a great analogy with sexual harassment.
On one hand issues around sexual harassment might be considered common sense, but when that didn't work - training was put into place
What consituted acceptable behavior in the office vis-a-vis sexual comments and behavior changed over time - training was put into place
Social Media follows that same theme
You might think common sense would rule - but the examples I provided and others prove that common sense ain't enough
It's not just that what constitutes acceptable social media is changing - it's that's it is being created.
This certainly does amount to a cultural shift. But if you look at HR blogs and what most of us are seeing from HR departments - HR is certainly not in the lead, sometimes they might be following somebody else's lead but more often than not they are doing the ostrich with regards to social media and the implications.
While I do agree that employees need limits on social networking at the job, also believe that the employer needs to watch the fine line between the job and the private life of the person.
If the employee is bad mouthing customers online on or off the job, then I believe that the company has a right to step in. If the employee is just being an idiot online and makes no association to his job, then we're getting, in my opinion, into an iffy situation that cannot have a blanket fix.
The guy who took his bath in the Domino's sink (I believe it was), the company has every right to do what they need, whether he said where he was or not (I only saw a very small piece so I can't go by what was said, only what he did). However, had he done the same thing in his own home and not mentioned where he worked, that's iffy.
Should employees be social networking at work? Absolutely not, unless it is part of their job. And if the company has a policy about social networking at work, then the employee has an obligation to follow the rules. But, does the employer maybe have an obligation as well? Like maybe if they really don'e want their people networking, blocking the sites on the company computers so it is a non issue to begin with? Yes, I agree that they shouldn't have to and that adult employees should be able to follow direction. But we also know better.
Then one may say employees will post on their own time. Fine, they may do so. BUT, I would have no problem with rules about posting company related things, even from home, off limits. The company is still not dictating what someone can post in their personal life, just their corporate.
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