Human Resources

Human Resources (HR) is the main driving force of the security framework. HR makes all other policies or approves all other policies such as IT security policies, so it should be no different for social media policies. Whether your company is large or small, a department or person handles the HR function. The Information Technology (IT) staffing company Robert Half Technology (http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/Small-Business-Resource-Center) found that in 2010 54 percent of U.S. companies had banned workers from using social networking sites at the office and 19 percent restricted use to business use only. In light of this restrictive HR trend, how does your company handle this issue?

Whether an employee posts communications that might impact his company from home or from work is a gray area that the company needs to clarify. If an employee tries to post information to social networks at work, you can easily forbid this with a policy document or even block it with technology such as a data loss prevention tool like Symantec’s Vontu program. If that same employee posts to social networks at home, you cannot block it. Still, the employee may effectively be limited or restricted from posting confidential or derogatory information about the company by company policy and contracts between the employee and company. However, case law isn’t clear on employees’ full rights vis-à-vis their employers when posting to social network....¹