HR Departments in recent times have been exposed to several harassment cases, cyber-bullying and privacy violation issues that crop up because employees are connected with each other on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn.
You may have blocked/firewalled the use of these channels at work or from a computer/device provided by the company, but you are unable to do so if employees connect after hours outside the workplace from their personal computer/mobile phone etc.
Employees and HR need clear direction on handling some of these questions/issues that have become common place. For example:
- What happens when your boss sends you a friend request on Facebook? Are you mandated to accept it?
- What if you choose to ignore your boss' invite? How do you deal with any repercussions you sense?
- What do you do when you notice that your peers or subordinates are bad-mouthing you in Facebook?
- What happens if your boss friends your colleague but does not accept your invite?
- What do you do when you find a colleague at work and friend on Facebook posts something against your coworker or company or boss?
- How should you react / respond to tweet about your company, if at all?
- How should you react to discovering that a colleague at workplace and a friend is also part of a group that is detrimental to the company?
- How do you react to a colleague (linked to you) on LinkedIn uses Answers to help "strangers" professionallywith expert advice?
- Is it Ok for you to "friend" employees of competing companies, in a public forum? Do I need to declare this to HR?
- Is it ethical for HR to Google you before hiring you and then making decisions based on your affiliations (or the lack of it) to hire (or not to hire)?
Your HR has their work cut out, to define clear policies to handle each of these situations. It is also incumbent upon the HR department to educate employees the ensuing risks and at the least provide guidelines for their conduct.
Do you have Social Media Policy document that can be shared?