Issue

Your employees are online and chatting/blogging about personal and professional business whether your organization has firewalls or not.

Since we can’t control what employees say or do online anymore than we can when they are out with their friends on the golf course, can we encourage responsible behaviour?

Facts

The internet creates powerful opportunities for connecting with and learning from our most important stakeholders that didn’t exist even a couple of years ago.  There are new places to meet and build relationships with customers and potential customers and other key stakeholders.  Our employees can learn a lot and so can they.  To be effective we need to help employees understand the opportunities and threats of their online behaviour.

Learnings

First we need to encourage employees to be very clear about what role they are playing in their online interactions. For example do they have the authority to speak on behalf of the organization?  Once they are clear, then it’s important that they are transparent about their role online.  Are they:

  • An individual speaking on their own behalf?
  • An employee speaking as an employee?
  • An employee speaking on behalf of the organization?

And from an organizations point of view ask ourselves what role if any we play in educating and encouraging employees.  As a responsible employer the organization’s Policies or Codes of Business Conduct must include guidelines for behaviour online that address the following:

1:  Why are online guidelines important?  Why are we telling you this?

2:  How to act responsibly online in general:  what behaviours reduce/increase personal risk and why? Where do I go for more information [should include publicly available sites with privacy information]

3:  How to act responsibly online as an employee:

  • What does the organization expect of me?
  • What organizational policies I need to be aware of when I’m online as an employee [as a reference].
  • How do I know when I’m speaking/being heard as an employee? [Need to be clear about how this is defined.  Is that anytime I reference my employer?  Get involved in conversations around our issues, products and services?]
  • What behaviours reduce/increase professional and business risk?
  • Are there consequences for inappropriate behaviour on line?  If so, what are they?
  • What can I do with information I discover online – about service issues/successes, competitive info, etc.  Who do I contact?
  • Where to go for me information or if I have questions?

Once the thinking is done.  Keep it simple.  Make it behavioural.  [Check this out.]

Bottomline

Employees and the internet must be designed into your overall institutional  communication strategy.