Social Media Policies: Are We Listening or Silencing Employees? How Do You Handle This?

Social Media Policy: Listening Tool or Silencing Mechanism?

We frame the social media policy in our firm as a listening tool. We use it to listen to our clients, customers, users, and so on. In all this, where do our employees stand? I ask this question as I just came across a tweet by a lady wherein she shared why she got fired over a tweet. What are we arriving at? Are we building listening tools or designing to silence?

Please share how you are designing your grievance-handling systems in the age of seamless platforms. Have we identified the differences between maligning and voicing a concern? How far should we restrict employees from using a tool? Is there any way that we can acknowledge and resolve, rather than terminating them? Condemnation and corrective actions towards an outrage or even rude behavior stand many levels different from termination that affects an employee's career. I seek an understanding from Progressive HR Practices and find a solution to a situation like this!

[img]https://www.citehr.com/attachments/147603-social-media-policy-getting-fired-over-tweet-screen-shot-2013-09-28-11.47.54-pm.png[/img]

Here's a comment to this discussion from Dr. Arindam Sengupta: "She was fired not because of #SocialMedia but because of the firing provision in that #organization."

The screenshot of this tweet has been attached below:

[img]https://www.citehr.com/attachments/147606-social-media-policy-getting-fired-over-tweet-screen-shot-2013-09-29-10.25.28-am.png[/img]

Social Media Policies: A Comparative Approach

Companies must frame social media policies. Indian-based organizations are avoiding this issue and banning all social media websites from the workplace, whereas non-Indian companies are creating good and employee-friendly social media policies. Refer to Ford, Nexen, and Coca-Cola's social media policies (freely available online). I framed social media policies based on them, and everyone is happy here now. :)

Employee Rights and Criticism

By the way, employees have all the rights to criticize the workplace, organization, and subordinates without using any derogatory words. Organizations, HR personnel, and top management should accept this criticism and improve the workplace environment accordingly. :)

Regards,

Great to find your views and the initiative you took in your firm. I agree with your views on the words to be used by the employees. I take an emphatic view and note that no one, under normal circumstances, would use swear words and voice such dissent. The situation here was allowed to roll out of control. Acknowledging a concern is far better than penalizing, leading to a greater outrage. As employers and management, our maturity lies in how we deal with such grievances without letting them fly off the handle.

I applaud you for drafting a new age policy. If it allows you to discuss, please share what pain points you have acknowledged and how.

Thanking you in anticipation!

I can't discuss the whole policy, but I can post the gist of the entire policy. There are four sections in this policy which are as below:

1. Introduction

2. Online Etiquette

3. Disciplinary Action

4. Social Media Policy Training

The introduction includes a nice paragraph about the company's take on social media. Online Etiquette teaches and informs employees what to post/share and how to do that. This section also includes all the terms and conditions. The Disciplinary Action section includes all the actions that can be taken against violations of any section of the social media policy.

Social Media Policy Training can be viewed as a program to educate employees about this policy. This training can be designed by HR and IT departments of companies. I hope this is useful. Unfortunately, at this moment, I can't share more with you.

Thank you. 