How do your employees portray themselves on Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? MySpace? And does it matter to you?

A survey conducted by Deloitte revealed that the majority of business executives believe they have a right to know how workers portray themselves, while most workers believe that their profiles on these sites do not concern thier bosses and that it's really none of their business.

Ironically, most workplaces have not established policies or guidelines on what an employee can or cannot do on these social networking sites. But establishing rules and regulations won't be very effective. Instead, guidelines focused on ethical behaviour, and workers educating themselves on the privacy settings on these sites would be better in the long run. Most people are aware that portraying themselves in a less than tasteful way could jeopardize their career or prevent them from finding work.

In my opinion, it is not an invasion of privacy for bosses to know how their workers are portrayed. You somehow represent your company everywhere you go.  But as social networking sites are viral and anything said on these sites are permanent, we must think twice before publishing something that could harm us in the future.

What's your opinion? Does your company have policies on social networking use? Drop us a line.