Are you confused over social media?
A significant number of employers still do not know how to deal with the issue of their employees using social networking sites on company tim
e, it has been revealed.
Of those businesses polled for a study by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE), 50 per cent admitted that they currently have no policy regarding the use of such sites by workers.
Specifically, respondents were found to be almost evenly-split between those that are content to allow their employees to make use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter and those wary that to do so may leave them open to a host of threats, including having sensitive or inappropriate material published online.
Commenting on the findings, SCCE chief executive Roy Snell stated: "Business clearly hasn't caught up with what its employees are doing online.
He added: "The risks are twofold. First there remains the business risk of employees doing things online that may reflect badly on the company. The second is that, as business develops policies and procedures in this area, there are going to be a lot of people finding that what they have long done is no longer acceptable at work."
This comes as Nielsen has reported that Americans now devote 17 per cent of their internet usage to social networking sites.
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Comments
It's all about having a proper social media strategy isn't it? If you know how you can benefit from social media then you know how your staff can make best use of the possibilities.
The lines between work and life are becoming ever more blurred and this seems to come immediately on the back of significant efforts by all sorts of bodies, including the Government, to bring us a work / life balance.
I think in a number of instances it would be very difficult to distinguish between use of social networking for personal gain and corporate gain. Of the 50% who have policies, it would be interesting to see the content of these policies, whether there were common themes and threads and how many of the employers with policies have had to take some kind of action against one or more of their employees for breaching the policy.
I once worked for a company who didn't allow any personal use of work computers. They only allowed managers access to the internet and sites such as e-Bay were blocked because it was recognised there was no real viable reason for being on these sites.
I didn't particularly agree with the policy but, if I ever used the internet, I was sure I had a viable business reason for doing so just in case I was called to account so there was very little scope for misinterpretation of acceptable behaviour.
There are also cases now where people are making statements on social media and employers are conducting a sweep of these sites prior to recruitment, so people need to be savvy about what's acceptable and unacceptable even in their private lives.
I agree Andrea. It's not rocket science.