Managing Employee Risk in a Social Media World

Are you concerned with what your employees are posting online? If not, you should be.

Over the past five years, social media usage has exploded. Websites and communication platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and MySpace dominate web traffic. In fact, if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest country, boasting an active community of 500 million members. Micro-blogging site Twitter is rapidly approaching the 200 million mark, and professional networking site LinkedIn is closing in on 100 million users.

Why is this important? Because chances are strong that your employees are contributing to the 700 billion minutes being spent on Facebook each month and the 24 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube each minute.

For your company, this can be a blessing and a curse.

Let’s start by spending a few minutes getting to know the Social Media Revolution:

Impressive stuff.

Many companies are using this revolution to their advantage. By incorporating social media into their operating strategies, companies are finding that it wields tremendous power in the areas of marketing, customer service, and branding. It’s allowing companies and customers to connect better than ever before. However, aside from skiptracing, members of the ARM industry have been slow to embrace social media for a mix of reasons (a topic better left for another post). With that said, some agencies have been more receptive than others. American Profit Recovery, for example, uses a multi-channel approach including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and a company blog.

But, we’re not going to use social media…

Obviously companies such as American Profit Recovery need to be concerned about what employees are posting online, especially when using one of its official outlets. But, even if you have no intention of establishing a YouTube channel for your agency, your employees can still do damage to your brand and bottom line.

Dominos Pizza found this out the hard way last year when two employees posted video of themselves tampering with food on one of their own personal YouTube accounts. Although the duo later claimed that video was a hoax, the damage was done, business was lost, and national headline news was made.

This:

Led to this:

You operate a call center, not a pizza parlor. I get it, but…

• What if an employee comes across a consumer, consumer advocate, or news reporter bashing your company on a blog and decides to fire back with a few choice comments of their own?

• What if an employee is harassing or bullying a fellow coworker on Facebook by posting racial, sexual, or physically intimidating comments?

• What if an employee uploads a photo to Flickr of himself extremely intoxicated with puke running down the front of your company-supplied polo?

• What if an employee bashes his or her boss on a site like WorkRant or the Facebook group I Hate My Boss?

• What if an employee busts out their smartphone, records a coworker treating a customer harshly, and sends the video viral on YouTube?

• What if an employee brags about how great your services are but fails to disclose that he or she has a relationship with your company? (You might want to read what the Federal Trade Commission has to say on this one!)

If you think that these "what if" scenarios could never actually happen, I implore you to spend three minutes watching this video by the Ohio State Bar Association:

Then, spend a couple of minutes searching the social media sites. You’re likely to find content such as the clip below, which shows an alleged McDonald’s employee ragging on a coworker in a very immature and unprofessional manner. In this example, the employee not only damages the company brand by disclosing she works for McDonald’s, but she also puts the company at risk by belittling her coworker.

Take a peek:

Bullying such as this can lead to workplace violence or suicide, the worst possible outcomes.

Create Boundaries and Educate

You will never have absolute control over what employees blog or tweet about you, your company, or your employees. Certainly, there are acts which may require disciplinary action, including termination, but trying to stop employees from using social media sites isn’t going to happen. After all, you have first amendment rights and privacy expectations to contend with.

Employees don’t know what they don’t know. Which is why creating a social media policy to provide guidance and educating employees on the pitfalls can help prevent a major disaster. With a good policy and training program, you can turn a team of risky bloggers into a team of advocates who can ensure your company is well represented in the revolution.

This video by Susan Rink of Rink Strategic Communications offers a good framework for what an effective social media policy should include:

You can also find more than 150 sample policies on the Social Media Governance website. Included are polices from entities such as FedEx, Flickr, Harvard Law School, IBM, colleges and universities, hospitals, banks, and more.

Once you have your policy defined, don’t simply drop it off in an inbox with hopes it will be read. This approach is nothing more than crossing your fingers and praying that employees will read and understand it. To increase awareness and comprehension take the time to meet with your staff and discuss the policy in detail. After all, even companies with 40,000 employees are making social media training a mandatory part of their culture.

Still curious about social media?

If you want to learn more about the growing risks–and rewards–that social media offers, I encourage you to sign up for session three of The Perfect Storm webinar series (Social Media Swarm) happening on Tuesday October 26, 2010. The webinar will be led by marketing and branding guru Drew McLellan, who The Wall Street Journal calls one of 10 bloggers that every entrepreneur should read. His blog, Drew’s Marketing Minute, is one of the most popular marketing and branding blogs on the web. I encourage you to stop by and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge, experience, and insight he shares.

About Gary Jensen
Gary is the founder and chief learning officer for Skills World, where he serves as a consultant, trainer, and business coach. He has more than a decade of experience in the ARM industry and he is also the creator and editor of collector mentor Magazine. Gary has appeared as a guest speaker at events such as ACA’s Annual Convention, ACA’s Fall Forum, Credit and Collections Business Academy, and  NCHELP’s Debt Management Conference among others. His articles and advice have been featured in Collector Magazine, Consumer Trends, Management Trends, Southwest Collector Connector, insideARM.com, Collect! Magazine, and see} Magazine. You can follow his tweets at www.Twitter.com/gjens.