Airing the Dirty Laundry

I've just read an article by Christine Crews, VP for the Employers Association Forum, Inc. as published in the Summer 2011 edition of HR Florida Review. The topic of the article is Technology's Impact on HR. It speaks about walking the fine line between allowing access to technology while at the same time managing all the good and bad that can come with it. This is a topic that affects organizations of all types and sizes. Many organizations have email policies and may have policies governing the use of technology but many of these policies are ambiguous and do little in the way of speaking directly to what is current in technology. For example, not many organizations specifically focus on social media within their technology use policy. In fact, some organizations have decided to lock out certain web sites (read: Twitter and Facebook) with the goal of preventing time spent by employees performing such unproductive tasks as updating followers on what they think about the movie they watched last night.

What these organizations may not have considered when creating their policy is the fact that social media cannot be blocked by a firewall or a policy. Social media is not restricted to work hours. What are employees (or for that matter anyone within the organization) posting for all to see during their lunch (on their iPhone, Blackberry, Evo, tablet pc, etc...) or while at home, at a coffee shop, bookstore, and so on? How does a company manage their reputation and maintain an open workplace at the same time? Are there benefits of allowing open access to social media while at work?