This is a guest post from Kyle Lagunas. You can read more about Kyle in his bio below.
Fact: Most employees occasionally use social media tools at work for personal reasons. The degree may also vary from one organization to the next – or even from department to department. Marketing professionals, for example, are often logged into Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pretty much all day – I know I am! Unsurprisingly, business leaders want guidelines in place for regulating employee use of social media outlets (and protecting against misuse) on personal and company accounts alike. Many 2012 corporate to-do lists include creating an official policy for regulating employees’ Tweets, Likes and Shares while at work.
One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that while regulation-focused policies protect an organization against any potential social media blunders, they cast a shadow over the shoulder of every employee who uses the internet on a daily basis (shudder). Well-intended though they are, this approach to establishing guidelines often prevent the company from seeing any benefits whatsoever from employee use of social media.
My suggestion: If your employees are already using social media while at work, why not make the most of it?
Though there’s certainly more than one way to skin this cat – i.e. there isn’t one universal social media policy that works for all, – there are a few things to consider when creating a more forward-thinking policy. You need a clear purpose, you need to be sure everyone is included, and you want your policy to offer more “dos” than “don’ts.”
With help from a few industry professionals, I’ve put together some pointers on how you can create a policy that does more than just regulate social media use while at work. It’s called Social Media Policies: Promoting vs. Policing Use and it offers some guidelines for developing an effective social media policy for managing your employees’ behaviour online. If you have any thoughts or questions, don’t be shy to leave a comment either here or on the original article.
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Kyle writes for Software Advice, where he focuses on covering human resources best practices, industry trends, and what-to-know-about HR software. When Kyle's not reporting and sharing insights for Software Advice, he can be found tubing down the Comal with friends, showing his niece the finer things in life, and musing over his cat's (aka Charlee Murphy) antics. He also likes reading, loves cooking, and abhors checking luggage.