What are your employees looking at?
Social networking sites have been a “hot topic” for some time. There is site for every persuasion, which would indicate that your employees could very likely be a member of a social networking site. “So what,” you say? “I monitor whether my employees are looking at inappropriate material or spending a lot of time surfing.” As you should! However, these sites offer a unique set of problems, as outlined in this Computerworld article. Are you, as employer, aware of all that is being or can be posted on these websites? What about the unintentional downloading of malware, loss of bandwidth to the sites…or the risk that your employees engage in various business torts? Obviously, information can leak out of a company in any number of ways, but does it hurt to close off one more opportunity and reduce your risks? I don’t think so and neither does Bill Gates. Further, one particular site appears to have made it all but impossible to actually delete a person’s profile, so any given item of information posted may live on forever and thus be accessible to any number entities.
I personally use Linked-In and so disagree with the Computerworld article’s stance that executives don’t use these sites. I’ve found a lot of my professional friends, older and younger, put Linked-In to good use. Then again, it is also used as an effective recruiting tool…
So, employers, how do you respond to these social networking site concerns?
