Email, Internet and Social Media

At Your HR Lawyer we know that Information Technology is a wonderful thing but it can also cause a huge amount of problems for you as an employer.  Many employees have regular access to their employer’s IT facilities and it is therefore vitally important that their use of it is carefully governed.

Smartphones, the internet, tweeting, and blogging are all positive innovations and can have an invaluable contribution to the way we work, helping us to be more flexible, stay in touch for longer, positively promote our business and respond to each other more quickly, at all hours of the day and night.

However, all of those advantages can also have a negative impact.  It has been estimated that misuse and abuse of the internet, email, and social media by British workers costs our economy billions of pounds each year.  In addition, these innovations have brought with them a raft of issues for employers such as time theft, defamation, cyber bullying, freedom of speech and the invasion of privacy.

Policy content

Having a clear policy on the above will assist greatly. You need to ensure that all employees are aware of when and in what manner they can use email, the internet, and social media, both inside and outside of the workplace.  It is recommended that the policy is written in collaboration with your IT department, as they will be able to advise on specific areas which may pose a risk to the organisation if misused or abused by employees.

Do you have a social media policy? If not, you should. Call us on 0115 870 1050 or email masa@yourhrlawyer.co.uk and we can help you.