Posing a Risk to the Reputation of Your Company

A recent Information World Review article reported on a Protiviti study which looked at workplace policies in relation to social networking sites. The study concluded that companies need clear polices to help protect them from the reputational damage that employees can cause through the use of social networking sites. In light of thing 3 of CPD23, “consider your personal brand,” this article made me think.

Whilst I think it’s a no-brainer that negative comments about your employer will do you no favours in the long term, many people don’t seem to think this way or maybe just don’t understand the consequences of their online posts. Sadly this has resulted in many organisations blocking access to social networking sites. The survey thankfully recognises that not allowing access is not sustainable, after all, people can blog, tweet and comment from the comfort of their own homes.

I say thankfully, but until I started the cpd23 programme I didn’t understand just how important social networking sites are for professional development. I wanted to create a blog to help with the reflective practice element of Chartership, but didn’t realise how important online interaction is and really missed the point of Twitter. I now have a better idea of how sites such as Twitter can help with networking, keeping up to date with news, events and trends and sharing and challenging your ideas. All of this in theory should help my development and ultimately benefit the company I work for.

I get that this is a complicated area, that different people use social networking in different ways and setting policies that impact upon personal comments is extremely difficult and contentious, however hope that companies do indeed think about their access policies, rather than just blocking sites.

In the future I hope companies will not only see the commercial benefit of using social networking sites (marketing, sharing information and managing their online presence), but will also recognise that such sites can provide their employees with an effective means of continuing professional development. Although, with 5% of the survey respondents admitting that they use social networking sites several times an hour, it may be a hard sell.