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How much control can you have over your employee’s internet activity? It’s easy to feel anxious when one bad review or one employee posting carelessly could impact your business. This is the first time that five generations are in the workforce together, so many of your employees will be very educated about the internet. Especially with new technologies like ChatGPT, your workers could easily be leveraging AI tools as they are working to generate email responses and drafts.
As an employer, small businesses need to follow a certain standard of employment requirements and human resources policies. Many small businesses don’t have the staff for a formal HR team. But when small business owners don’t have formal HR policies, this could potentially expose you to risk.
HR policies are an important tool for managing legal requirements, establishing employment conditions for your people, and providing guidelines for employees and supervisors related to disciplinary procedures. These policies can help employers show respect toward their employee needs, help guide conflict resolution, and provide clarity around compensation, training, time off, and other employee benefits. And your people will likely be able to fact check standard HR policies if your business isn’t following them.
Let’s explore a newer addition to workplace HR policies – the internet. We’re breaking down how you can start off your own workplace social media and AI policies to set employee guidelines and help reduce your company’s risk profile.
Setting standards for social media
In today’s online world, your digital presence may be your main storefront and it’s important that it reflects your business. Here are a few areas to examine for your social media policy:
Creating an employee handbook for using social media platforms
Every post and review related to your business can influence how your customers see you. Creating an employee social media policy is essential for protecting your company reputation.
Explain to your employees that the purpose of your social media policy is to help them share responsibly. Remind them to be careful about accidentally sharing any confidential information about your business since posts can live online forever. Not to mention that posting misleading information is inaccurate and could lead to risk for your small business.
Setting social media guidelines can be a little blurry. For example, employees could connect with former or prospective customers or even competitors using social media. Canadian employers are generally prohibited from restricting their employees with non-compete agreements. Talking to a trusted advisor can give you personalized support about what to include in your HR policies.
Managing online reviews for your business
For smaller businesses, just one bad review could impact your business. Your response is crucial to maintaining your brand reputation, to both prospective customers and applicants. It’s your organization’s goal to have one unified brand voice. Your employees shouldn’t be speaking for your organization online unless that is part of their role. This is because seeing mixed messages about your business or mission online could be confusing to an external audience.
To keep on top of managing your reviews, try making a list of the most popular review sites that your business is listed on, from both a service and employer side. This could include everything from Google reviews, Yelp, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. And don’t forget about tagged posts on social media. Mark your calendar to make a weekly habit of checking reviews so that you can respond in a timely manner.
Overseeing personal cell phone use in the workplace
Everyone has a phone in their pocket in today’s working world. The reality is notifications can be distracting and impact productivity. You may be wondering if you can restrict cellphone use during work hours. However, personal devices are essential for many people to check in with important personal responsibilities. And posting signs like “no phones at work” can lead to morale issues if your workers believe you are being unnecessarily strict.
You can offer guidelines of cell phone etiquette to remind your people to not bother others. This can include:
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Setting ringtones to vibrate
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Taking personal calls outside of working spaces
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Keeping volume off
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Not using cameras to respect others privacy
If you are struggling with employee compliance, put your cell phone policy into writing with clear expectations and reasons for your guidelines.
Get aligned about AI
Creating your workplace AI policy is one thing. Finding the best way to communicate it to your employees is another challenge entirely. You don’t want to be seen as behind the times with new tech, but any new tools can create risks when used irresponsibly. In fact, 40% of small business owners say AI technology would help them sustain and grown their business in Scotiabank’s latest Path to Impact Report.
Having a clear AI policy matters because your people want guidelines for what they’re allowed to do to increase their efficiency at work. And it’s important that they’re using new technology safely without inputting confidential information into public data collectors.
What to include in your workplace AI policy
Allowed use cases: Give examples of specific instances of tasks on the job when using generative AI is acceptable. An example of this could be drafting email subject lines.
Review process: AI can be a useful start but always include a human review of any generated work. This is important to check for misinformation and personalized edits to make sure the work reflects your business well.
Security risks: Be clear on the types of sensitive and confidential information that employees should never input into AI tools. These platforms can learn from that information and could share without your consent.
Acceptable tools: Not all technology is built with the same standards and levels of testing. Let employees know which AI tools and platforms they are allowed to use in your workplace.
There’s no shortage of use cases for AI and it can be overwhelming the craft the right guidelines for your employees. Asking for advice from a trusted advisor can be helpful in determining the best course of action for your specific business.
Providing a clear social media and AI policy is essential for making it clear to your people how to be responsible online. With ever-changing privacy concerns around technology, it’s important that your workplace policies guide your workers to make smart choices to reduce distractions, potential security risks, and help maintain your brand reputation.
HR policies can help small businesses outline their employee expectations, in addition to specific procedures to handle incidents. The right advisor can help you properly address the particular situations your small business is facing. Learn more about how our HR Advisory team can help you.