Are Your Employees Embarrassing You Online?

Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk Olympic Facebook/Twitter embarrassment

All users of Social Media should be aware of how public their posts and private details are, but none more so than you as a business owner and your employees.

The Australian Olympic committee either didn’t give athletes Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk (seen right) instruction on their social media use in regards to privacy settings and posting inappropriate updates, or those two are simply beyond help (quite possible).

According to a Consumer Reports survey released on May 3, nearly 13 million U.S. Facebook users aren’t aware of the social network’s privacy control settings or simply don’t use them at all. In addition, the last year saw 28 percent of them sharing all, or almost all, of their wall posts with more than just friends.

If your employees are active on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest it’s possible they are posting without regard to the level of privacy they actually have. They may believe they are posting privately, but are possibly posting updates publicly without even realising it.

What your employees upload to social media platforms, if it can be seen publicly, can cause embarrassment even if they are not posting about your company, but are still known to work for you. What your employees do in their private life, can reflect badly on your company if it becomes public knowledge.

If your employees are posting updates publicly or even only to an extended network, it could also lead to sensitive details about your firm being leaked.

Posting anything online is never really private, but you can certainly protect your business’s reputation if your staff are aware of this fact, and they have the best social media privacy settings enabled.

Leonie Smith The Cyber Safety Lady can hold a hands on Workshop to ensure that your employees and you as a business owner have the best privacy settings enabled for the social networks you and your staff are using. Leonie will take you through the privacy and safety settings step by step and also explain what information can be seen by the public, and how it can be seen.

Platforms covered are:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Pinterest

Contact Leonie Smith to arrange a Workshop Here:

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http://free-startup-entrepreneur-guide.com/ Wayne Melton

Not an easy subject. So they post pictures of the drunken party on facebook wearing the company uniform. Most HR people and employee handbooks really do not address this type of issue. Usually they have a policy covering conduct which reflects on the company but all of us are subject to some embarrassment from time to time.

Disparaging the company in public can be disciplined in most cases.

Also there are ways to get notified anytime your company is mention or referenced on the internet. It is not a bad idea to subscribe to these services. Most bright employees become aware that you will find out and avoid this type of embarrassment if they value their jobs.

In the end it is “at-will” employment subject only to your own rules applies evenly across all employees.

Wayne Melton

Oh it might be different in Australia.
Wayne Melton recently posted..Employee Handbook Tips for Small Business
- http://www.digitalbreezes.com Leonie Smith
  
  Thanks Wayne, education around these issues is key.