Social media is a fear monger for most company directors, according to Nicky Wakefield, who runs the Human Capital Practice of Deloitte Australia. (Nicky was speaking at The Future of Workplace Communications webcast, August 5, 2010).
In light of the rampant fear, it is surprising that a Manpower study in 2010 found that only 29% of American companies have a written social media policy.
Fear levels rose last month when the NLRB made its first ruling on a claim involving critical posts by an employee on Facebook. The NLRB ruled that the company “maintained and enforced an overly broad blogging and internet posting policy.” The NLRB has also filed another claim against an employer whose policy prohibits “the use of electronic communication and/or social media in a manner that might target, offend, disparage, or harm customers, passengers or employees; or in a manner that might violate any other company policy.”
Many fearful directors are undoubtedly awaiting the outcome of this second claim, and those who work for the 29% of companies that maintain a social media policy will certainly be re-evaluating those policies.
But I don’t think that the message should be to have more tightly written policies. Isn’t the message that social media is now an established means of communication? It is no longer a distinct channel; it is just one of the many ways people interact – right there with the telephone, e-mail, texting – and, yes, talking directly to one another.
Do organizations really need social media policies? I think that they need human resource policies that include social media.
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