Legal Research

Social Media For Employees - Rules?

Is your organization afraid of social media like Twitter and Facebook when it is released into the wild or employees at large? Yep, most have concerns.

Some companies ban it outright.

Study: 54% of companies ban Facebook, Twitter at work
"Some allow limited use of social networks on the job, but most now bar them outright"

In my first professional position, many staff at the accounting firm where I worked were not allowed to have a phone (!!) since it might afect their productivity. Of course, the opposite was true as people headed to pay phones in the underground mall to make their calls.

Here's a more rational and positive aproach from the Utah state government:

State of Utah Provides Positive Social Media Guidelines for Employees
by Bill Ives

Utah Creates Social Media Guidelines for Employees Who Blog, Tweet, Etc.

State of Utah Social Media Guidelines (4 page PDF)

This is a useful document. The citations and references at the end of the document are linked and the outline is well done. It might be a great place to start for your organization if you need to surmount the fears and connect your institution to society.

If you aren't allowed to have a phone then change jobs or avoid the LeBrea Tar Pits. (grin)

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on December 02, 2009 (boomark / email).