The Ontario government in Canada banned workers from accessing Facebook in the workplace. Both large and small businesses have taken steps to mitigate or ban the use of social networking sites in offices. While this cuts down on “wasted” time at work, companies and government can’t really ban employees from being a member of social network.

Beyond lost productivity issues of using Social Networks in the workplace, organizations are concerned over malware and virus attacks and protecting corporate secrets that may inadvertently be leaked, and preserving corporate reputation. These are all legitimate concerns. But the fact is, employees have lives outside the workplace, and they can be active at home or sitting in a Starbucks at lunch on their laptop. People have rights.

So what can an organization do? A brief consultation with legal counsel will likely point out that you may request employees not be active on social networks (certainly this may be logical for employees of police and justice services), but it is only a request and cannot be enforced. So the best approach, we have found, is to engage your employees through human resources to help them better understand Social Networks, the potential damage to the workplace and company. Arm them with the tools to make better decisions about their online behaviour. Then leave it up to them.

In some cases, we have found that an open policy helps a company in it’s online reputation management strategy. Employees who are better aware of potential negative issues generally use greater judgement in their activities in social networking sites. They may also bring “negative” sites and groups to the attention of an already overworked communications team. Some businesses and governments have also embraced business social networking tools such as LinkedIn for networking purposes and allowed their use in the workplace.

The key is to develop an effective policy, run this through Legal and HR and then iterate it to employees in an effective manner. Engaging an experienced outside consultant may help in developing a Best Practice policy around social networks - but of course we have to say that! Be sure to develop a policy that includes HR and Legal though, by going to one extreme or the other without effective planning and consideration, you may be opening the door to legal action or damage to your reputation online. Potential employees today are also likely to use Social Networks to investigate a potential employer. Will what they find there help or hinder?