Dear {!firstname},

We hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July holiday. We are truly grateful to live in the United States and appreciate our freedom.

In this issue, we talk about an often neglected IT area - the technical portion of your HR policy. In the first of our series, we review the impacts of social media and the web.

Feel free to forward this to others who may find this newsletter helpful.

Sincerely,

Laura Pettit Rusick
OPT Solutions, Inc.
www.optsolutionsinc.com

When did you last update your HR policy's technology section? Does it include Social Networking? Cell Phone Usage? Work from Home? In Part I of this series, we review the impact of the web on your HR IT policy.

The growth of the web has facilitated new levels of automation, research and sharing. With that have come privacy concerns. There are allegations of Google capturing screen prints, including user ids and passwords for websites, and Facebook transfers personal information to third party applications. Your employee's personal and company-related information is exposed to the public in more and more places.

Update your HR policy. You probably already have a policy covering confidential information. The difference now is the ease of sharing it, and the sharing culture on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Make sure your policy explicitly includes the web, including social media sites, blog content, blog replies, etc. Monitor to check for employee abuse.

While many companies have simply outlawed the use of social media, it can be worthwhile to strike a balance that encourages mention of your company, increasing awareness and publicity. This is particularly critical for non-profits who want to take advantage of the free platforms to encourage a sense of community and increase awareness for fundraising.

Establish guidelines so you can consistently apply your policy. What happens if an employee disparages your company on Facebook? What if his profile is public? Private? The culture of your company may require a difference in treatment between a public vs. private profile. When do you want employees to interact on the web? Be cautious of listing specific sites as examples - social media is constantly changing and what is popular today probably won't be in two years.

Use social media to your advantage. Consider checking social media sites when evaluating candidates for hire... READ MORE>>>

Copyright © 2010 by Laura Pettit Rusick.

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