Why do you need a social media policy?
Social media sites are often great fun and help us stay connected. They can also act as excellent marketing tools for businesses. Despite these positives, social media can also be a legal minefield for employers – whether used in a professional context, or the employee posting in their own time. As a result, it is important that we are mindful of risks associated with social media use so that we can mitigate them.
Implementing a social media policy is a great way to outline your expectations for how employees use social media (both for work and personal purposes) and allow you to reduce risk.
In this article, we will outline potential risks for employers associated with social media use, as well as practical steps that employers can take to implement a social media policy that works for your organisation.
Why are social media policies useful for employers operating on a hybrid work pattern?
With more businesses choosing to work in a hybrid or remote fashion, many employers have had to adapt their practices to stay engaged with their colleagues and customers.
For instance, you may have introduced more social tools to help teams communicate and collaborate on projects. Or, you may have encouraged greater use of professional social media networks, such as LinkedIn for networking with fellow businesses.
A potential side effect of homeworking is that boundaries between personal and workspace, both physically and mentally, are become increasingly blurred. As a result, it is a good time to consider how employees are using social media, and your expectations as an employer.
Tip: To support homeworkers, introduce a homeworking policy. We have a free template available with our guide – How to draft a Homeworking Policy
To support employees, you should consider introducing a social media policy or updating your existing social media policies to reflect your current hybrid or remote working pattern.
Sharing your social media policy with your teams is a great way to communicate and clarify your expectations around social media use.
Risks for employers without a social media policy
As we have covered, there are many benefits to using social media. It is easy to understand why an employer would want to outline how to use and manage work based social media accounts. But, why is an employee’s personal use of social media relevant to employers? To explore this, let’s take a look at the potentials risks for employers associated with employee social media use.
1. Brand and reputation
Social media sites (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr, and Reddit) enable people to interact directly in real-time. Whilst this has many benefits, it also means that negative messages can be amplified more than ever and even has the potential to go ‘viral’.
There have been numerous reports of employees criticising their employer or manager online, from describing their job as “boring” to saying much, much worse. Unchecked, these comments don’t reflect well on a business and can negatively impact employer brand and the reputation of the company.
2. Confidential Information
Once information is out there on social media spaces, you can’t get it back, even if you delete the original post. It can be retweeted, shared, screen-grabbed or lost in someone’s inbox. If employees don’t know what’s expected of them or what’s allowed, they could innocently brag about a new confidential client or post on their personal blog about a highly sensitive project.
3. Discrimination or harassment
Discrimination legislation can hold employers liable for discrimination by their employees. For example, if an employee makes a discriminatory comment online about a colleague, relating to sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, belief or race, their employer could be held vicariously liable, even if the remark wasn’t posted using a work computer, or was done without the employer’s approval or knowledge.
As discrimination awards are uncapped, these types of issues are definitely something employers want to guard against.
Comments made by employees on social media sites can also be construed as bullying and harassment (even more important in light of the changes to sexual harassment legislation at the end of 2024).
4. Libel and defamation
There are an increasing number of libel and defamation cases arising due to what people say on social networking sites.
Whether it’s an off-hand remark about a colleague or a comment made in anger about customers or suppliers, employers could potentially be held liable for unfounded allegations published online by their employees.
5. Time-wasting
We all know how useful social networking sites can be, but few would deny they can also be distracting, and easily time-consuming. If there are no guidelines in place, businesses may find staff wasting hours of paid time each week chatting on social media sites, with the lines blurred between work and personal use.
Business or pleasure?
Employees must understand that updates on their personal profile can still have far-reaching implications if they are work-related or if, from their personal profile, it can be identified who they are employed by.
By the same token, employees must be aware that when they’re representing the company online, they must behave in a way that reflects well on the business, whether that’s in what they post or how they respond to other users. This applies to both personal accounts (where their employer is identifiable, or their work specific social media accounts).
There may also be restrictions on who can represent the company online.
It’s clear that whether employees are posting in a personal or professional capacity, what they say online can have a massive impact on a company’s brand and reputation, as well as pose legal issues.
As with many things employment law-related, well-drafted policies can make all the difference. If you don’t already have one, now is the time to implement a social media policy and make sure it is well-communicated so that employees understand what is expected of them.
Practical steps to implementing a social media policy
So, what do you need to do? Here are practical steps for implementing a social media policy that suits your organisation:
1. Develop a clear social media policy
A clear policy on the use of social media and the standards expected of employees is vital. It should be incorporated into employee handbooks just as other policies affecting performance issues are. Creating a good social media policy not only has the potential to protect your brand, it offers guidelines and warnings for employees about what is acceptable conduct online, in or out of work hours.
Employers should set out clearly:
- What social media is
- What is expected of employees when using social media
- Using social media at work (including the ownership of social media accounts at work and if/how generative AI can be used to optimise professional content)
- Airing grievances
- Intellectual property
- What can happen if the policy is breached.
The purpose of a social media policy is to highlight the importance of the issue and to help employees realise their responsibilities when using social media.
As in many areas where breach of a policy can lead to potential disciplinary action, it is helpful to set out examples of what you as an employer would regard as gross misconduct and which could lead to dismissal. This might include revealing sensitive commercial information online, making insulting or abusive comments about colleagues or the company itself, racist, homophobic or other grossly offensive posts which cause damage to the business. The content of the social media policy also needs to be appropriate to the business sector, and your organisation.
Clarification around the ownership of social media accounts at work
In Whitmar Publications Ltd v Gamage & Others [2013], the High Court considered the issue of social media account ownership in the context of employment. Three senior employees left Whitmar to start a competing business and used a LinkedIn account -originally created for business purposes at Whitmar – to contact clients and promote their new venture.
One of the employees claimed that her LinkedIn page was personal and refused to disclose her login details. She continued to use her (and the company’s) contacts. Whitmar decided to sue their former employees and to seek an injunction to prevent them from using their LinkedIn profiles.
The court found itthe LinkedIn account had been used for Whitmar’s business purposes and that the employees had breached their duties of loyalty and confidence. In particular, the contacts and databases within the LinkedIn accounts had been used to give the new company a competitive advantage.
The court granted an interim injunction in favour of Whitmar, highlighting that where social media accounts are used on behalf of an employer, ownership may rest with the company. The employee was, therefore, ordered to hand over her login details to her former employer so that they were in a position to access and amend the profile page.
The case highlights the importance for UK employers to have clear employment contracts and a robust social media policy around the use and ownership of business-related social media accounts.
2. Communicate the policy effectively
Employees need to know where they stand on the use of social media both at work and outside of it. It is very important that employees are clear on what is acceptable and what is not. Employees need to know that what they consider private can affect their position at work. It should be made clear to employees that they can often be linked to a business by their uniform, LinkedIn profile, headings on their social media accounts or other identifying information.
Share your social media policy in a place that is accessible for all employees, such as an employee handbook.
3. Monitor, enforce and review your social media policy
A policy can only be truly effective if it is kept under review and continues to meet the changing needs of a business. Social media constantly evolves and so the policy needs to keep up and reflect fast moving developments. It needs to be monitored and applied consistently so employers do not face accusations of treating some employees differently. There should be periodic reviews of the suitability of the policy as well as records kept of any actions taken in reference to it. This can help to demonstrate the lawfulness of the response should an employee make a complaint about the action taken.
Implementing a social media policy for your organisation
This is a complex area for employers, it is essential to make sure the right processes are in place to deal with any issues. Moreover, it is helpful for employees to know what is expected of them. To sum up, employers should:
- Recognise the seriousness of the issue and the potential for harm
- Have a clear and effective Social Media policy in place
- Communicate the policy so employees know where they stand
- Review the policy regularly to take account of changing social media use
- Enforce the policy fairly and consistently
Given the potential for serious harm to a business from social media use by employees, developing and maintaining a Social Media policy that is clear, effective, and understood by all employees is essential for all employers.
If you would like to discuss updating or implementing a social media policy (or other HR policies and procedures) for your organisation, please do contact our team of HR Consultants, we would love to hear from you.
