Workplace Trend: Your Social Media Policy

Social media plays a significant role in your business. This is true if you advertise on Facebook, create shout-outs on Twitter or put up a profile on Linkedin. Even if you do none of these things, you can bet your employees post online comments about your company. Creating a social media policy is a workplace trend you need to adopt.

Your policy should contain certain prohibitions. An employee should be told not to share confidential details regarding your clients, not to relate any proprietary information and not to post derogatory comments meant to defame management, other employees or clients.

The regulations should also forbid postings or pictures that state or imply the  employee participates in illegal conduct. Your policy should also warn against an employee making disparaging comments regarding another person’s race, religion, national origin, age, disability or gender.

Use your policy to encourage workers to acknowledge their affiliation with your company when publishing online. Recommend authenticity and transparency when participating in social media. Remind employees they are not to use company logos or trademarks in their posts without explicit authorization. The policy should also ban employees from saying they are speaking on behalf of the company.

Note that there are certain things you cannot control with you social media policy. Employees cannot be disciplined or terminated if they post petitions to unionize, for example. Check local laws regarding an employee’s social media rights when creating your policy.

Contact us for help with crafting your interior environments.