Technology is a pervasive and ever-changing part of our lives both outside the organization and within it. Every day we find new ways to bring social media into the workplace. Whether it be recruiting new talent, interacting with customers, establishing collaborative relationships with peers or creating workplace friendships, social media is being used more and more by our team members. With the limitless marketing, information sharing and learning opportunities social media brings the organization, it is not without its risks. The social media presence of our employees reflects on the organization as a whole and creates employee relations liability. With these risks in mind, it is imperative that we create and maintain a comprehensive social media policy to govern online interactions and the representation of our organization.
Problem
In the current social climate, employees need to be aware of the risks and responsibilities of using social media and how that can and will reflect on them both personally and professionally. This is especially important with the organization beginning to use social media for its own recruiting, marketing, learning, customer service and collaboration uses. There are several considerations to keep in mind for team members using social media and decision-makers in charge of creating policies and monitoring the organizations’ social presence.
First and foremost, team members need to be educated around the fact that no social media is private and that there is always a way to link their words and behaviors back to them, and therefore back to their organization. Customers, competitors, vendors, investors and partners can and will be exposed to their comments and the way in which they present themselves and in turn use that information in positive or negative ways against the individual as well as the company (Johansson, 2015).
In addition to avoiding damaging images and comments, team members need to be careful to keep confidential information private and use it only for its intended purpose. Sharing privileged information can be damaging to the company and its strategy as well as the individual professionally and personally. Along the same lines, employees should be aware that they are not to personally speak on the behalf of the company or organization in any official capacity and who is the party responsible for doing so (Johansson, 2015).
Finally, social media usage presents another dimension to potential harassment issues. Many social media users feel anonymous and brave when interacting online, leading them to say offensive, vulgar, or inappropriate things they wouldn’t normally say in person. Team members need to be aware that this sort of behavior is still considered harassment and will not be tolerated.
Before any of these issues can be addressed, team members need to be educated and informed of both acceptable and encouraged behavior as well as unacceptable and prohibited behavior. Along with knowing what they should and should not post online, team members need to be informed of the consequences of violating these rules and guidelines and the potential effects it would have on the company and their professional and personal lives.
Recommendations
The organization’s social media policy should start by exploring the company’s culture and values in order to guide team members toward desired behaviors and interactions, both personally and when interacting on company social media (Idealware, 2012). The policy should outline the ways in which the organization would like to be seen and how team member’s interactions reinforce or contradict the desired image. Team members’ should be educated on the characteristics of a positive reputation and the behaviors that back this.
Legal and confidentiality issues should be addressed next. Rules pertaining to protecting customer/patient information, company privileged information and announcements, sales, and conflicts of interest should be clear and concise, ensuring understanding and adherence. Consequences of violating these rules should be established.
Roles will need to be established so that team members understand what their responsibilities and their limitations are as far as creating and sharing social media content. Only designated team members should speak on the behalf of or directly representing the organization to ensure that all information is true, accurate and on brand for the company, avoiding any legal or public relations issues (Idealware, 2012). These people will be responsible for creating content to be shared, answering questions, responding to comments and complaints and posting acceptable images, branding and logos. All employees need to understand how and who to refer questions and requests for information within the company.
Team members, especially team members in charge of posting to social media on behalf of the organization, should be properly equipped to and understand the importance of crediting creators and authors of content being shared. This will ensure that both the individual and the company are protected from violating copyright laws. On the flipside, users must properly identify themselves or the organization as the creators of any original content to protect their own content.
Finally, a comprehensive extension of the current harassment policy must be adapted for social media use to protect team members, customers, and patients. This portion of the policy should explicitly explain prohibited behaviors including but not limited to any harassing, racist, sexist, vulgar, sexual or violent content. Any topics or interactions unacceptable for the workplace is unacceptable for social media, both as a team member and as an official spokesperson of the company. When interacting on any organizational area, users should take care to think about how their tone and word choice sounds to the receiver and any observers. Consequences of inappropriate interactions should be communicated clearly, up to and including termination.
Conclusion
By carefully reviewing what the organization wishes to gain from its relationship with social media and social learning, as well as its culture and values, policy makers should come up with a clear and detailed social media policy outlining acceptable and unacceptable online behaviors, interactions and content. With this policy, the organization can ensure that the company, its team members and its customers get the most out of social media interactions while minimizing risks to reputation, productivity, legality and employee relations (Bhasin, 2019). By doing this, the company will be able to take advantage of the limitless learning and collaboration possibilities while maintaining a safe, respectful and productive environment for recruiting, marketing and teamwork.
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