36% of companies do not have a social media policy in place. Yet, 72% of companies acknowledged the potential damage social media could have on their brand.
How should employers navigate the tricky issue of regulating how their employees use social media without over-policing them? This article investigates how we, as HR professionals, might go about this.
[Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this article does not constitute legal advice.]
What is a Social Media Policy?
A social media policy outlines how employees should and should not behave on social media. Employees not only represent themselves online, they are often seen to be representing the company they work for. A social media policy gives guidelines on how social media should be used at work.
When thoughtfully crafted and implemented, a social media policy will protect your company and brand reputation while simultaneously helping to foster a strong sense of connection between employees and the company. HR leaders play a crucial role in creating and overseeing execution of social media policies to safeguard both the company and its workforce.
Understanding the Basics of a Social Media Policy
Every social media policy should cover the following key areas:
The Policy’s Purpose and Scope
Readers must understand why it is necessary and its applications. Include the benefits of social networking and social media in this section.
For US-based companies, it is also important for any policy to be written as a guideline instead of an absolute rule so as to not violate the National Labor Relations Act. The act states that employees have the right to engage in “protected concerted activity”, including via social media.
Who the Policy Applies To
This distinction is particularly important if the company has multiple types of stakeholders they are accountable for. For example, Playstation has a social media policy in place for its influencers.
When I worked at Teach For Malaysia, our social media guidelines included recommendations on maintaining professional teacher-student relationships through social media and how to protect student privacy.
Definitions
How the company defines social media versus company-related, confidential information. This distinction helps clarify the differences between these two related areas, and will help streamline the content of the policy.
Expectations
Expected behavioral norms when using professional and personal social media accounts. Employees’ personal profiles and actions online can affect the company even if they are not an official spokesperson for the company.
Consider encouraging employees to include a disclaimer on their personal accounts stating that their posts are based on their own personal opinions.
Legal and Security Protocol
How to manage privacy and security risks, such as ensuring sensitive information is not shared beyond its intended audience and maintaining secure passwords.
Include legal guidelines with respect to both the law and industry standards, which can vary by state and country.
Terms for Responsible Social Media Engagement
The policy should cover brand guidelines, company confidentiality and etiquette.
This will vary depending on the nature of your company’s business, and should distinguish between general staff as well as staff who do speak on the company’s behalf in departments like customer service and public relations.
For instance, Walmart’s social media policy clearly states that only Walmart’s social team engages with customers through the company social media pages to minimize confusion.
Consequences for Violating the Social Media Policy
This must include any disciplinary action that may be taken.
Alt tag: An HR professional writing a social media policy for their employer.
Best Practices for Creating an Effective Social Media Policy
Now that we are aligned on the key aspects of what we want to include, let’s dive into how to best begin the process of creating a good social media policy.
Bring Together a Diverse Working Committee
Several different perspectives need to be taken into consideration when developing the company’s social media strategy, and subsequently drafting the corporate social media policy. While HR is certainly important in driving this conversation, consultation and collaboration with other departments like IT, legal and marketing is also vital.
Here’s a quick overview of the key questions each of these departments would be responsible for addressing.
IT:
- What privacy and security measures will be put in place to protect against data breaches and cyber threats related to social media use?
- What will the company’s approach be when it comes to monitoring employee social media activity?
Marketing:
- What is the company’s social media marketing strategy?
- How will the company maintain consistency in brand identity and messaging?
- How should employees engage with individuals on social media platforms if (or when) representing the company?
Legal:
- Does the company policy adhere to all relevant regulations (e.g.: data privacy, employment, labor, copyright law, etc.) and protect the company from legal risks?
- What are the consequences for violating the policy?
HR:
- Does the policy integrate the company’s values and culture, and is it aligned with other workplace policies?
- When and how often should employees be educated on the company’s social media policy?
- What will the process be for addressing any issues that may arise from employees using social media?
Besides this, decide how often this working committee should reconvene to review and update the social media policy. Given how social media and its surrounding legal landscape keep evolving, workplace policies need to also keep up to speed with these developments.
Make the Policy Engaging and Easy to Understand
There are different approaches you could take here. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. A lot of companies publish their policies online, so you can look to them for inspiration on social media policy examples.
- Best Buy’s social media policy sets a terrific example to follow in how they clearly and specifically outline what employees should and should not do. The policy is easy to digest with its short bullet points, and written in simple language.
- In a similar vein, FedEx effectively unpacks the decision-making process an employee might go through to show how its social media policy applies in various circumstances. They also break up the text with graphic elements, making it visually more interesting to read.
- Another way to make a policy accessible and inclusive is by providing different ways to engage with the content. For instance, Xerox has an animated video version of its social media guidelines.
After creating a draft, be sure to conduct focus groups to test the policy with different employees to get their feedback and thoughts. This not only gives you the opportunity to further clarify the policy based on their input, it helps employees feel more bought-in to the process.
These focus groups could also be a chance for you to test and gain ideas on how to best roll out the policy across the company.
Encourage Employee Advocacy
A company’s social media policy is the perfect avenue to foster employee advocacy, and to connect it to an employee advocacy program if one already exists. Employee advocacy is the promotion of a company and its products or services by its staff.
Empowering employees to be brand ambassadors can enhance the company’s credibility and engagement in authentic and relatable ways. It can also have an outsized impact on business outcomes by attracting new customers and potential employees.
Edmunds does a great job of incorporating employee advocacy into its social media guidelines, and it sets a strong tone from the start. Here’s an extract from the policy: “It’s our hope that Edmunds.com’s employees will embrace social media as a way to reach out and empower consumers looking for help with all their automotive needs. Each of us understands the many great tools Edmunds.com has to offer and how together we can help solve real-world problems every day.”
Employee advocacy can also lead to higher employee engagement and a stronger sense of community at the workplace. In a recent study of a company’s employee advocacy program based on its employees’ LinkedIn posts, it was found that posting content about company culture that is created by employees themselves were the most engaging posts compared to other forms of content.
Fit the Policy into the Bigger Picture
Continuity within your policies in the employee handbook helps to reinforce your company’s mission and values. Consider what kind of tone you want your social media policy to have. It should be in keeping with your company’s culture.
When outlining what acceptable and unacceptable social media behavior looks like for your employees, use the opportunity to tie it back to your company’s Code of Conduct. Additionally, connect the social media policy to other relevant policies and internal teams as much as you can.
Addressing Acceptable and Unacceptable Social Media Behavior
Employees’ social media presence reflects both their personal brand and the company they represent.
If concerned, recommend employees keep separate personal and professional accounts. This might include using privacy settings to adjust access to personal posts, and connecting with clients and colleagues only on professional accounts.
Emphasize the importance of maintaining responsible and respectful communication, whether online or offline. This also connects to any workplace harassment policies, so employees know what steps to take if they have any concerns about online harassment or bullying.
Breaches in confidentiality can have severe consequences on relationships with clients and colleagues. Remind employees that they cannot disclose sensitive company or client information on social media. Encourage employees to check with their managers if they are uncertain about whether certain information should remain confidential or not.
Outline the process for investigating violations of the social media policy. This can be a separate policy. It should cover options for reporting any concerns or misconduct, as well as how investigations into any allegations will be carried out.
Lastly, include what kind of corrective action or disciplinary measures might be implemented in response to the findings of the investigations.
Applying a Social Media Policy in Recruitment
In addition to a social media policy for employees, HR leaders should consider other areas of HR that may benefit from having a codified policy in place. The recruitment and hiring function is a prime example.
Conducting social media checks on job applicants has increased globally year-on-year. On the flip side, there are also a variety of reasons why companies opt not to conduct social media screening. The top two reasons globally were that it was not required by regulations, followed by a lack of knowledge in the area. Furthermore, research shows social media screens did not seem to improve predictions of future job performance of candidates.
Here are some factors to consider if your company should develop a policy and process for social media screening when reviewing candidates.
Are you going to screen all positions you’re hiring for, or just some? Consider the resources you have available, as well as the specific details of each role.
What are the guidelines for how the screen is going to be run? Weigh your priorities and resources in the process of deciding whether to review whatever public information is available on the candidate(s) in question or if the screen will focus only on specific social media sites like LinkedIn.
Who is going to conduct the social media screen? It is crucial to mitigate the risk of discriminating against candidates due to immutable traits like race, age, and gender. To minimize unconscious bias during the decision-making process, designate the responsibility of screening a candidate’s social media to someone in the HR team who is not the hiring manager or recruiter. Besides that, whoever is conducting the social media screen should focus only on assessing information that is relevant to work while avoiding details that are irrelevant to the job.
During the hiring process, when will the screen be carried out? Because of the resources needed to conduct a social media screen, it makes sense to only run it later in the hiring process. A recommended place to incorporate a social media screen is when you are running pre-employment background checks and following up with candidates’ references.
Leverage counsel from your legal team. You can also engage in the services of an independent professional third party firm with expertise in employment law. These guidelines from Baker McKenzie provide a great starting point in outlining some of the legal risks associated with using social media screening during the hiring process.
Ensure that all staff involved in the hiring process understand the company’s stance on social media screens, and are consistent, transparent and upfront with candidates. Regulations around social media checks in hiring are in varying stages of development across different countries and states.
In Europe, hiring managers cannot view a candidate’s social media unless there is explicit consent given. In the US, over 20 states bar employers from asking candidates to share their social media pages, associated usernames and passwords during the hiring process. As such, it is advisable to inform candidates and obtain their written consent before proceeding. This respects their right to privacy, as well as protects the company from a legal standpoint.
Monitoring Employee Social Media During Employment
While employers may have concerns (e.g.: productivity, breaches of confidential company information, etc.) about employee social media usage, it is a delicate issue to navigate. On one hand, the number of large employers deploying workplace surveillance tools to track their employees doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to 60%, and is expected to keep growing.
On the other hand, employees obviously have a right to privacy. Besides that, preliminary research has shown that monitoring employees can often backfire. Employees who were under surveillance were found to engage in more disruptive behavior such as cheating, intentionally working more slowly and stealing office equipment.
Why was this the case? The study found that employees who were not being monitored were more likely to demonstrate agency and take responsibility for their actions. Those who were monitored were more likely to say that whoever was overseeing the surveillance was responsible for their behavior.
If there is a business need to justify monitoring employee social media usage, consult your employees and obtain their consent before proceeding with implementing any kind of monitoring system. Be upfront and transparent, and share the rationale behind why surveillance is necessary.
Also be clear about what will not be monitored, and respect those boundaries set. This will promote a sense of accountability between employer and employees.
Another opportunity to leverage monitoring of employee social media is to use the data in ways that benefit employees, such as informing professional development or wellness efforts. Again, transparency and open communication is key to gain employee trust and buy-in.
Conclusion
Crafting, maintaining and implementing a thoughtful and effective social media policy can be rather tricky and challenging, especially given how multifaceted it is. However, when done right, a strong social media policy not only protects the company from a legal standpoint. It also serves to strengthen company culture through employee engagement and advocacy.
