Whenever I speak to a gathering of business people about social media, my first question is whether their companies have a social media policy not a policy about computer or Internet usage, but a social media policy. That is because social media policies are very different animals from the “we can read your email” policies of yore. Many of my colleagues would say that given the fast and furious changes in how social media impacts employer (and employee) rights, companies might just be better off without social media policies.
Having spent much of my career litigating wage-and-hour class and collective actions, I can conclusively tell you that the “absence of a policy” can, in fact, constitute a policy in the eyes of a seasoned plaintiffs attorney or a sympathetic decision maker. Given that, it is my studied opinion that all employers should have specific guidelines governing usage of social media as it relates to employment. With that out of the way, the obvious question is: what should these guidelines contain in order to simultaneously ensure the best protection for our business interests and our employees’ privacy rights? And that’s where it gets a bit complicated.
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