A friend wh works for a company that shall for obvious reasons remain anonymous, has just been telling me how they all received a memo recently about the companies new policy on social media.

Whilst I can understand some of the policies and their wish/rights to have them, the first one has me puzzled as I am sure they have no right or legal right to ask or expect it.

My friend has told me their employer states

“All employees have to have their profile settings on any social media platform used for personal use set to private and not public”

Anyone with any knowledge give some info on this as to me it sounds completely outside their jurisdiction for want of a better word.

rule of thumb, don’t mention who you work for or anything about work, they’d have a hard time arguing with a reason for their daft demands.

Unless they work for GCHQ/MI6/Sports Direct

Yes those points were mentioned and fair enough I suppose.

It’s the whole telling people they have to have their own personal Facebook etc set to private. That’s totally over reaching imo. Don’t want to tell her not to do that if there is some bizarre way they are legally able to expect that.

I’d be referring to previous legal precedence here. Arkell vs Pressdram.

It isn’t bad advice, but for most employers it isn’t enforceable and they can sod off. Most likely, they can do as Cougar suggests. In some cases, there might be a decent reason. You don’t want to name the employer, can you state the field of work?

If you are, for example, a teacher then there is a very good reason not to have pupils being able to see everything you get up to. Teachers have lost their jobs because of what went on their public facebook profiles.

If you work in sensitive industries or areas of government, it can make you an easier target because of the personal information you might reveal to bad people.

That would surely be the risk she chooses to take. I don’t see how they can make it company policy that an employee has to make their own personal anything private.

What’s the line of work?

Private healthcare firm

My point isn’t that revealing information you shouldn’t is not a bad thing etc. But that should be dealt with accordingly IF it happens. As long as she doesnt mention work etc i still don’t see what right they have to tell her to set her own personal non work social media sites to private.

Can’t see any obvious reason for such draconian rules, although I get why a private health firm would be paranoid about employees slagging them off / revealing their sordid dealings on social.

Has she asked for clarification at all? I’d be talking to my union for advice personally.

Talking to the union was what I suggested.

News just in is that they have also been told they can not be ‘friend’s with anyone for whom they may have any level of managerial responsibility.

I recently watched a presentation given by the head of network/IT security at a client company; it was pretty eye opening!
Part of it was about hackers gleaning bits of info from people any way they can, so the less you give out the better.

Is it enforcable? Probably not. Is it reasonable? (IMHO) Yes.

I only really use Facebook but it’s all locked down and private, I don’t want just anybody seeing what I’m up to both privately and professionally. I don’t want customers seeing me in that context, or colleagues for that matter. And I’ve always made a rule not to be Facebook friends with other staff.

Personally I’d be a bit miffed if as an employer if I had customer facing staff being dicks on their social media, which is pretty common.

What I don’t really get is the issue? Forgetting work, id still not want a public profile for all and sundry to see what I’m up too – and what do you actually lose by having it all private? Apart from the ability to be public.

It’s not just FB, Twitter is public by its nature and although you can go “private” on Instagram it really defeats the object of the platform IMO.

Don’t have accounts with the behavioural advertising pedlars.
Not that big of a deal.

Lots of employers really do like the take the piss with the way they like to embed themselves in their employees lives.

Yeah have a LinkedIn profile proudly showing where you work, be member of the Compnay FB group, follow their twitter etc – causually mention having a shit day in Work in your own time, even if your profile is private and a colleague sees it and HR want a chat!? Get tae ****!

God I’m glad I’m out of the corporate game.

I think she is more concerned with the fact that if they think they can govern what you do with your own personal accounts, what else are they going to try and get away with.

I keep my profiles private, but she doesn’t want to. Surely that’s HER choice and not that of her employer? I agree with her personally.

I suppose there’s a difference between bringing a company into disrepute and whistle blowing.

However I don’t ever engage with work colleagues on social media, everything is set private /only viewable by friends, and make work specific references as it’s just asking for trouble.

Then again I’m generation X, so fairly savvy, younger people who have grown up with social media seem to be a lot more feckless when it comes to privacy.

Random 2nd hand factoid….

I dated a girl once who worked at Goldman Sachs, where they were forbidden from having FB accounts….

My point isn’t that revealing information you shouldn’t is not a bad thing etc. But that should be dealt with accordingly IF it happens

Perhaps they prefer to lock the stable door before the horse bolts?

But they surely don’t have any right to tell an employee to make her Personal account settings private.

I wonder what time they want her to close the living room curtains on an evening.

I’d say it depends on the industry, as mentioned above, teaching is an obvious example..

It wouldn’t be proper for Mrs Robinsons year 7 class to be able to view the debauchery of her end of term party.

I dated a girl once who worked at Goldman Sachs, where they were forbidden from having FB accounts….

How would they know if she did have a FB account?

IMO well over reaching themselves. The can say not to bring the employer into disrepute but they cannot say what you do outside of work time beyond that

I have a pals who are teachers on facebook – they simply lock down their accounts so pupils cannot see. Its not set it to private. Its set it to “friends only”

sounds to me like a policy written by someone who does not understand social media

I think she is more concerned with the fact that if they think they can govern what you do with your own personal accounts, what else are they going to try and get away with.

I keep my profiles private, but she doesn’t want to. Surely that’s HER choice and not that of her employer? I agree with her personally.

So do I.

This is a sledgehammer solution to the problem of people talking negatively about their place of work. It’s like saying “sure, you can work here, but you’re not allowed friends.” The solution really is a policy which states “don’t talk negatively about your place of work” or otherwise act in a manner which would reflect badly on the employer.

I rarely post personal stuff on social media, but if I do then it’s always friends-locked. I don’t see why this approach shouldn’t appease any employer. Like they’re going to check each individual employee anyway, unless there’s cause to.

sounds to me like a policy written by someone who does not understand social media

Nail / head interface.

Pretty sure our social media policy is “say what you like but not on our behalf”. Or in as many words. I just don’t link to work, easiest way.

I do have a friend that has to give her Whatsapp details to the company should she ever open an account, presumably to be “reachable”. Sod that. Dual sims for that nonsense.

Company phones that have GPS locked on.

Business IT depts. able to monitor every mouse movement and click that you make all day long.

They can read your thought processes at work and see where you are outside of work.

Yet there are websites like Glassdoor where people can leave an, urhmm, ‘anonymous’ review about their company. That’s social media.

Tech eh, ****’ shite I tell ye <—I’m not from Glasgow by the way

sure, you can work here, but you’re not allowed friends.

We all have to get jobs in IT?

I worked for an American company that retained the right to sack me if someone posted something on my feed that related to the company in what they classed as a negative light.

A bit touchy about their vaccines and anti vaxxers…

sounds to me like a policy written by someone who does not understand social media

quite possibly – or one written by someone who really understands it, and what people do with it. They’ve just covered themselves against:

– employee posts something claiming it was a mistake that it was public
– patient looks up employee and starts stalking them
– patient looks up employee and sees what they were up to last night and questions fitness (or after a cock up)
– employee posts something that is probably not very wise but where bringing the company into disrepute is questionable (e.g. “God just home from another 14 hr shift, they get their pound of flesh – makes me need a (beer)”)

I think this though: “they have also been told they can not be ‘friend’s with anyone for whom they may have any level of managerial responsibility.” makes sense on some types of social media, but is nonsense on others. Its essentially how I work with Facebook, people find it funny that I only “friend” people when the leave the company! Twitter and LinkedIn though are totally different. I’m not on Instagram. Internet fora are essentially sort of anonymous, and WhatsApp automagically knows everyone in my phone (inc my staff)… so this is probably a policy by someone who thinks social media = Facebook. I’d be more concerned about people posting on newspaper comment sections.

Business IT depts. able to monitor every mouse movement and click that you make all day long

I work with / implement this technology. We can barely get it to work reliably when monitoring privileged access sessions. Monitoring everyone would just be a nightmare.

Interestingly I too work for a private health company who recently released advice as above. Not a policy though. Perhaps her manager has misunderstood general good advice with an order?

You got to be sensible about it. An employee saying something that sheds a negative or dim light on the company they work for in social media that might be viewed by lots of people or even go viral, is definately writhin the interests of the company and might not only put the companies reputation at risk but also might expose the employee to legal action against them, so the rule might be there as much to protect the individual. Companies to sweep social media channels for anything about them First i’ve Heard of this policy though. Most companies have their own social media feeds so if you want to promote them you can via their feed. If you want to slag off the company you work for on SM hen you have to be aware the chances are they’ll see it and you could be in trouble.

There are plenty of companies that do social media sweeps as part of their recruitment process so be careful what you say on social media and how you might be portraying yourself. The genie is well and truly out of the box.

I did ask that and apparently the memo makes it quite clear that this is policy and mentions disciplinary if people don’t adhere.

Would an employer extend this embargo to any other social exchange? Would they require that staff only eat, drink and socialise in private establishments? That they don’t talk to anyone at the check out or the bus queue?

If the employer is worried about what their employees might say about them why not strive to be a business that your staff can only thing of good things to say about you?