Onboarding and Social Media - Where to Draw the Line

A Workforce Management article published in December of last year points to a troubling fact about today's typical U.S. companies. Apparently, 1 out of 2 organizations still don't have a policy in place regarding the proper use of social networking technology. Why does this matter? Employees are using sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn both at work and at home in ways that can negatively impact their employers.

Simplistic Solutions Won't Work

It might seem like an easy solution to make accessing social network sites at work a violation of company policy. However, this can hamper efforts to modernize workplace communications. You can't realistically tell employees not to use Twitter when your HR department is using this medium as an adjunct to its other communication methods. In the same vein, encouraging new hires to build a company LinkedIn profile and then prohibiting them from actually using it to network doesn't make much sense.

Telling employees what they can or cannot say online when they are logging in from home is even more fraught with the potential for trouble. Can workers express an opinion about their workplace in a public forum? Yes. However, they must not be permitted to divulge sensitive information or represent themselves as speaking on behalf of the company in the process.

Policies Must Be Created or Updated Now

Companies need to stipulate in their confidentially agreements that online posting is a prohibited means of disseminating privileged information along with the consequences for failure to adhere to the policy. It must be made clear that this applies regardless of what account (personal or corporate) is used to carry out the activity and whether the employee is on the clock or not. At the same time, employers can't afford to get carried away with invasive monitoring practices - privacy rights for activities that take place off-site are still a hotly contested topic.

Employee Compliance Must Start with Onboarding

Unfortunately, according to a report from the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, approximately 25% of employers have had to take disciplinary action against workers for inappropriate use of social networking sites. The first step in curtailing this type of behavior is having new hires read and sign your company's policy regarding this technology. Then, they should receive acculturation training that assists them in using your company's social networking tools appropriately. The Emerald Software Group suite of products including Universal Onboarding and AllegroHR Acculturation Portal support both of these best practices.