Yesterday's Advisor featured Attorney Cynthia L. Gibson's "You Can't Unring the Bell" on social media. Today, we have her 10 best tips for employers trying to structure a policy and an introduction to a timesaving collection of prewritten personnel policies.

Gibson is senior vice president, Legal, at Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. She offered her suggestions at the recent Society for Human Resource Management Legal and Legislative Conference in Washington, DC.

So, Now What?

There are serious legal and ethical challenges to the business use of social media (go here for yesterday's analysis). Gibson offers the following tips for HR managers:

1. Follow Social Media Developments

Analyze how your employees are using social media—both for business and personal reasons—and assess the benefit versus the risk. Get your employee "addicts" to help you, Gibson says. How can you leverage social media? What should you be worrying about?

2. Develop Policies

Gibson suggests in particular:

  • Establish the right to monitor activity.
  • Consider whether to have restrictions on access or use during working hours or just a requirement that access not interfere with job duties.
  • Establish guidelines for accepted and prohibited uses.

Mainly, says Gibson, don't get too complex with your rules—it's better to go after productivity. You might consider the IBM approach, which consists of a simple reminder:  “Don’t Forget Your Day Job.”

3. Be Careful About Background Checks

  • Get the applicant's consent on the application form.
  • Establish written process for checks by category of job.
  • Consider separating recruiting data from the hiring process.
  • Consider prohibiting your hiring manager from doing Internet checks on applicants. Let HR staffers do it—they can filter the information and pass on what the manager needs.
  • Consider using social media checks post-offer only.
  • Do not engage in “pretexting” (lying about your identity to obtain information).
  • Use a consistent process for searches.
  • Identify the criteria used (e.g., criminal behavior, discriminatory animus).
  • Retain a record of pages viewed.
  • Discuss your findings with the applicant before revoking an offer.

4. Approvals

Consider an approval process to get permission for employees to use social media for business purposes. If the company name is used, require a disclaimer to make it clear that the views expressed are not those of the company unless the business use has been approved.

Require approval to use company logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property.

BLR's SmartPolicies gives you 350 HR policies, prewritten for you, ready to customize or use as-is. Click here to examine it at no cost or risk.

5. Confidential and Proprietary Information

Issue a caution about disclosure of confidential and proprietary information.

6. References

Address whether employees can provide recommendations on LinkedIn® and other sites for current and/or former employees, colleagues, and competitors. Consider reserving the right to require the retraction of recommendations.

7. Relationships

Consider restrictions on who can be friended or networked—especially for managers. Prohibit harassment, discrimination, or retaliation.

8. Content Restrictions

Insist on the following:

  • Respectful, truthful communications regarding the company, co-workers, and competitors
  • No offensive or illegal statements or activities
  • No offensive screen names

9. Educate, Educate, Educate

Outline the internal and external challenges created by misuse of social media. Clearly communicate your expectations, and identify sanctions.

10. Don’t Overdo the Buzz Kill

Finally, says Gibson, don't forget the positive uses of social media:

  • Recruiting
  • Brand management
  • Competitive intelligence
  • Customer communication
  • Sales

How about your employees? Are your managers making social media mistakes—maybe right now, as you are reading this? The only avenue of defense is policies—clear, well-distributed policies that help your managers make the right decisions and follow the appropriate procedures.

Gibson's tips will help with your social media policy, but how about the rest? Our editors estimate that there are 50 or so policies that need regular updating (or may need to be written.) It's easy to let it slide, but you can't afford to back-burner work on your policies—they're your only hope for consistent and compliant management that avoids lawsuits.

Fortunately, BLR's editors have done most of the work for you in their extraordinary program called SmartPolicies.

Don't write that policy! We've already done it for you, and at less than $1 each. Inspect BLR's SmartPolicies at no cost or risk.

SmartPolicies’ expert authors have already worked through the critical issues on some 100 policy topics and have prewritten the policies for you.

In all, SmartPolicies contains some 350 policies, arranged alphabetically from Absenteeism and Blogging to Cell Phone Safety, EEO, Voice Mail, and Workers' Compensation. What's more, the CD format makes these policies easily customizable. Just add your company specifics or use as-is.

Just as important, as regulations and court decisions clarify your responsibilities on workplace issues, the policies are updated—or new ones are added—as needed, every quarter, as a standard part of the program.

SmartPolicies is available to HR Daily Advisor subscribers on a 30-day evaluation basis at no cost or risk ... even for return postage. If you'd like to have a look at it, let us know, and we'll be happy to arrange it.

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