Social Media Policies In The Workplace

Back in November, the National Labor Relations Board issued a Com-plaint alleging that an employer illegally terminated an employee who post-ed disparaging remarks about her supervisor on her personal Facebook page. The posting referred to her supervisor as a “psychiatric patient” and used several vulgarities, which resulted in other employees chiming in (Associated Press, November 2010).

While the Complaint is only an accusation and not a formal ruling from the NLRB, the repercussions of this action are critically important for em-ployers of both unionized and non-unionized employees alike. Many em-ployers are now reviewing their social media policies with a view to deter-mining what they can lawfully prohibit employees from posting online.

Although we cannot provide any legal advice, one of the things we can help our clients with is establishing an acceptable use policy that outlines how employees can use company resources, such as their e-mail, Internet and electronic equipment. We can also help by setting up monitoring soft-ware that can either allow management to govern employee access to cer-tain web sites, such as gambling, porn, career sites, etc., or block employ-ees from those sites all together. If you want to keep employees focused on being productive at work, then give us a call for a free consultation and trial of this software.