An employee handbook is intended to help employees know and understand an organization’s specific operating policies. This information can increase their productivity and decrease the potential for legal liability. One way to educate employees on modern communication tools and their use in the workplace is to include a social media policy in the handbook. Keeping these policies simple can be beneficial.

In the May 2011 issue of Public Management (PM) magazine article, “Keep It Simple, Avoid a Complicated Social Media Policy for Your Employee Handbook,” author Rayan Coutinho offers 14 concepts that can be tailored to a community’s needs:

1. Remember that everything on the Internet lives indefinitely.
2. Do not speak on behalf of the employer unless you are authorized to do so.
3. Keep confidential any employer information that is not a public record; this is paramount.
4. Assume that every communication could be treated as a public record and could be revealed to a third party.
5. Give credit for authorship where it is due.
6. Be respectful of each person’s legal right to express an opinion.
7. Respect other employees’ right to privacy.
8. Avoid social media during business hours.
9. Do not conduct business communications, internal or external, using social media.
10. Do not discuss another employee’s, business partner’s, or vendor’s performance using social media.
11. Comply with all applicable laws in order to avoid litigation and wasting taxpayers’ money.
12. Respect differences.
13. Any statement about a business or individual must be readily verifiable.
14. You have no right or expectation of privacy in any communication.

For complete information on these concepts, read the May social media policy article here.