This is a guest post by Jon Strother, Senior Copywriter/Editor and Social Media Manager at Global Compliance.
You’ve probably heard the stories. There’s the one about the employee who was terminated for criticizing her employer on Facebook … and then sued the organization for wrongful termination. And of course there’s the one about the congressional staffers who tweeted updates about being drunk at work and other inappropriate topics. In short, if you pay attention to the news, you know the use of social media by employees poses a risk. But do you know how to minimize that risk?
First, the bad news—the problem may be worse than you think. Recently, the Ethics Resource Center’s 2011 National Business Ethics Survey revealed surprising statistics showing that active social networkers—defined as those employees who spend 30% or more of their working hours on social networking sites—have very different ideas about ethics than most other employees. For instance, 42% of those networkers indicated they would post negative information about their employer or co-workers on Twitter or other social media sites versus 6% of non-networkers. Similarly, 46% of networkers said they had no qualms about using company software on their home computers compared to 7% of other respondents, and 51% were willing to compensate for reduced wages or benefits by performing less work compared to 10% of non-networkers.
Why do social networkers behave the way they do? The survey didn’t capture what percentage of self-identified social networkers were using social media sites as part of their delegated job duties as compared to what percentage were doing so without authorization from their supervisors. If the numbers in the latter category were large, then the statistics may reflect a general disposition towards noncompliant behavior from those employees. In other words, being an active social networker may not be the source of their views on ethics; instead it could simply be one more example of how the employees bend or break the rules.
On the other hand, if legitimate, authorized social networkers are reporting similar attitudes towards ethics, we have to look for a deeper explanation. Could it be that social networkers just naturally view ethics in a different light? The free and open exchange of information is often viewed as a cornerstone of social networking and the internet age in general, so it only makes sense that many networkers would embrace a value system where property rights—intellectual or otherwise—are downplayed, sharing is encouraged and old 20th century rules are meant to be broken.
Now for the good news. There are steps you can take to limit the risk employee social media use poses for your organization. Follow these guidelines to protect your organization:
- Adopt a social media policy that defines what social media activity is acceptable in the workplace.
- Determine if part of your policy is to limit internet access to social media sites on company computers.
- Ensure that all employees are not only aware of the policy but also trained on its details.
- Also train your employees on your organization’s Code of Conduct and the possible ramifications for behavior that violates the Code (you should be doing this already anyway). If appropriate, make sure employees realize this behavior may include public activities they engage in outside of work that reflect poorly on the company, such as bashing the company on social media sites.
- Determine who is actively using social networking sites at work and whether their networking has been approved by management.
- Keep a list of approved networkers.
- Determine what the appropriate response is to unapproved social networking, and be consistent with your response.
- Avoid “gray areas” where employees adopt social networking roles for themselves without proper authorization from management.
It’s true that there are limits to how much control you can exert over your employees’ social media activity. You can block access on their work computers, but they can still use their smartphones while sitting at their desks. And of course you can’t really control what employees tweet or blog about your company outside of work. That being said, by adopting, disseminating and enforcing a comprehensive social media policy, you let employees know what the rules are and what is expected of them. That gives them—and your organization—the opportunity to make social media a net plus rather than a potential source of disaster.
About the author:
This article was written by Jon Strother, Senior Copywriter/Editor and Social Media Manager at Global Compliance. Global Compliance provides whistleblower hotline services and corporate compliance training, including up-to-date courses on sexual harassment training and diversity training. Global Compliance has merged with ELT and EthicsPoint to form a new leading player in the governance, risk and compliance (GRC) industry.
[Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/davedugdale.]
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