As you gain employees, there are plenty of new considerations for your business; from the legal implications, to the processes you may need to introduce, but one thing you may also want to also consider, is what your social media policy is.

78% of the UK population has at least one social media profile. Do you know how your employees are using social media?

There are two things to consider here,

• What are they saying about you and your business?
• As a representative of your company, how are they conducting themselves?
  

Following this week’s Euro final, it took just a few hours for the press to report on the abuse several of the team had received, much of it being racially aggravated.

If you had an employee posting that kind of comment and content, would you know what action to take?

An employee’s own social media profile has long been regarded as “personal property”. If they aren’t writing about your business, it doesn’t matter, right? Wrong.

The aftermath of the abuse received by the England players, and the press surrounding it, resulted in a number of companies receiving formal complaints over the hateful conduct of their employees.

The most notable of these is Savills, the national chain of estate agents.

Savills received many complaints over one particular individual, forcing their hand into issuing a statement and suspending the employee in question, pending investigation.

Many users have commented that their actions aren’t enough, but what would you do in the same position?

It’s something that may not directly impact your business today, but for the avoidance of any confusion or doubt, it may be worth introducing a social media policy into your terms of employment.

On the other hand, do you know how to protect your employees from similar attacks? Make sure you familiarise yourself with how to report online abuse, and make your team aware of your policy, so that they know who to go to and what the result could and would be if that occurred.

If you’re looking for a few examples of how you could roll this out to your own team, protecting everyone involved, there are some great resources here:  https://immediatefuture.co.uk/blog/30-examples-of-uk-social-media-policies-and-guidance/