Banning Facebook at work isn’t the solution

There was an interesting piece at Mashable the other day about the surge in employer crackdowns on “social media misuse” by employees.

My take on this? Well, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. Businesses simply aren’t communicating clearly enough to their employees what their expectations are for for social media use, and as a result, both they and the folks who work for them are paying the price.

Many businesses do have some sort of official “Internet and Email Use Policy,” often drafted years ago. The tone of these first generation, Web 1.0 employee sets of rules is generally very negative (”Thou Shalt Not Visit You Tube For Any Reason Or The Wrath Of Your Boss Shall Descend Upon You!”), and they are primarily focused on preventing perceived loss of worker productivity. The basic underlying assumption is that nothing good could ever come of employees “playing around online” or “sending personal emails” during work hours.

I’ve noticed that many organizations are attempting to beef up their old-school, outdated Internet and Email Use Policies by simply banning all employee access to anything deemed to be a “social networking” or “non-essential site.” Unfortunately, this negative, reactive approach to the social media revolution doesn’t serve today’s businesses very well at all. It ignores the realities of how people now communicate with one another, both socially and professionally, and it fails to recognize the opportunities that can accrue to businesses via employees’ online activity. And simply banning access to FriendFeed from office desktops doesn’t address the fact that employees’ off-the-job digital communications can also have a major impact on their employers.

There are certainly some very specific businesses for whom completely banning on-site access to social networking and other non-work-related sites makes sense, usually from a security standpoint. However, for most organizations today, a more realistic and productive approach is to consider a few minutes of Facebook or message board catch-up time here and there throughout the workday as the 2009 equivalent of occasional chats with coworkers around the watercooler. It’s really no different. As long as an employee is getting her work done to an employer’s satisfaction, and she isn’t violating the social media use guidelines that have been clearly communicated to her (more on that in a minute), then it makes sense to relax about an employee’s occasional Facebook status update, You Tube chuckle, or quick Amazon purchase while on the job. In fact, some research even suggests that employees who are able to do a little surfing and social networking while at work are more productive than those who are not.

Plus, employers can actually derive tangible ROI from employees’ social networking activity, when the employee is using that online time to build community relationships, develop leads, gain business intelligence, or enhance professional development. Yes, all of those “work-related” functions and more are happening every minute of every day on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and elsewhere.

Rather than taking the clumsy and draconian approach of completely blocking social media platforms on all company-owned machines – which is a bit like trying to hold back a flood with a paper plate, since an employee can just as easily check Facebook from his iPhone that he brings with him to the office each day – a smarter, more productive path is for businesses to create and adopt their own comprehensive, completely updated digital polices for all employees (Yes, Ms. CEO in the corner office, that does include you.). There are an increasing number of informative examples and freebie, boilerplate digital policies now available online, but it’s very important that a policy be carefully and strategically customized for the unique needs of the organization it will serve. A well-crafted “Social Media Engagement Policy,” as it is sometimes called, is written with a clear understanding of the highly specific interests, operations, and vulnerabilities of a particular company. A hospital, for example, will need to specifically address HIPPA issues in its policy, while a financial services firm would want to offer clear guidelines to prevent employees from accidentally violating SEC regulations via Twitter.

In other words, if you are in charge of thinking about this stuff for your company, it’s not really a good idea to try to slightly rewrite IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines – even though they are free online, and they are pretty brilliant – to try meet the needs of your grocery store chain.

But while an effective, modern set of guidelines certainly should address the big “Thou Shalt Not” points, such as revealing privileged or proprietary company information online, it should not take a generally negative tone overall. Instead, a good policy should comfortably recognize and support the role that digital communities and conversation now have in all of our lives. Guidelines should offer more than a laundry list of things employees are forbidden from doing; they should instead take the approach of proactively empowering workers at all levels to carefully consider how their online activities either support or damage the company. Specific examples of best practices for what employees can do to boost the company brand, along with the enumeration of things to avoid will help people understand more clearly what is being asked of them.

Last, a good policy will go beyond addressing the online activities that an employee might engage in on the job, and will also clearly explain the company’s expectations for personal, off-the-clock social media use. This is a sensitive area, as employers can’t and shouldn’t expect to “control” the free speech rights or social activity of employees away from work. However, with a well-written digital policy, employers can tackle this touchy subject in a legally and ethically sound way, offering workers clear and helpful guidance on how to avoid problems for themselves or the company when they do that weekend blogging.

Here at Ackermann, we’re writing quite a few social media policies for a variety of organizations these days, and I look at every one as completely unique in the way it blends the specific digital, legal, human resources and operational concerns of that particular client. And as more companies begin unblocking Facebook and instead adopting these customized digital policies that positively communicate clear expectations, I expect to see fewer unfortunate social media-related firing incidents, like the ones mentioned in that Mashable article.

If you are interested in talking with me about your organization, and whether it might be time to consider implementing an up-to-date, comprehensive digital policy for your employees, email me at kgranju@ackermannpr.com or give me a call at 865-584-0550.

If you are so inclined, you can read more of my recent blogging on social media strategery RIGHT HERE.