Smart Phones and Compliance: What is Appropriate and What Crosses the Line?

Katrina Campbell, Global Compliance, Vice President, Training and Education Solutions
Andrew Foose, Global Compliance, Co-President, Training and Education Solutions

When we’re talking about the impact of personal communications devices and the use of social media in the workplace, clients often ask us “what are the laws here, what can we do, what can’t we do, is that OK, is it all right that my employee is sending tweets about this or that, is that their right to free speech?” The question about free speech comes up all the time. And we remind people that employees do not have the right to free speech against their employers; that is a right against the government. So, employers first of all need to know that this is an old issue, but in a new format.

The corporate compliance issue of employees sharing confidential information or inappropriate information, whether it’s inappropriate pictures of various body parts or whether it’s trade secrets or other company confidential information, that’s always been around. Before, it was a question of whether they were faxing it out or mailing it out or putting it on email or just sharing it at lunch when they shouldn’t be or in the elevator. Today’s challenges comes from so many new opportunities to cross the line or quite frankly, to no longer understand that there is a line given how many devices and more opportunities there are for information to be shared very widely or for you to lose control over the information. Who would have thought that the words Facebook, Tweet, YouTube – and many others would have to be considered as part of an organization’s code of conduct, and therefore part of its code of conduct training.

It’s still the same issue as it has been for decades, only on steroids. At this point, it’s primarily an education challenge – making employees aware that the same rules apply in the virtual world as apply in the physical world. You don’t get a pass if you make a pass using new communication tools and services.

Facebook and other Social Media Provide A New Way For Employees To Misuse Information, But The Issues Remain The Same

To take it a step further, while we need to educate employees and make sure they know that this is just a new way potentially to cause trouble and to get into trouble, I don’t think employers should get into the policing business, at least in most cases. Unless your organization does have highly sensitive information or national security interests or other things like that, policing employee communications is likely to be a negative event. It’s going to create an atmosphere where employees feel like they’re being spied upon all the time and I think for most employers they don’t want to do that because it’s going to make it very difficult to attract top talent or to keep the top talent that they have. No one likes being spied on. Unless you have a very strong reason to be looking for information, you should not be policing employees’ use of their private devices.

Make It Easy For People To Report Violations and Protect Whistleblowers From Retaliation

What is more effective is to make sure that employees have an easy, efficient way to report concerns. Rather than policing everybody, make it really easy for everyone to let you know if they become aware of some inappropriate activity that involves personal communication devices or social media. That could be an employee whistleblower ethics hotline that people could call, it could be a website where people can log in anonymously and report ethics and compliance allegations. It can be any number of things, but they have to make sure that everyone knows: one, this is wrong, and two, if you see it let us know. Because otherwise the only thing we have as a last resort is to police and no one really wants to go down that road.

Finally, make sure that people are protected against retaliation. I think particularly in a school context where students are being bullied, one of the greater fears that the students have is that if they speak up, it’s only going to make matters worse. They’re going to get bullied more; they’re going to be retaliated against, and so on and so forth; it’s the same in any organization. So, if an organization wants people to truly come forward and report potential ethics and compliance violations, they have to have a robust program in place to protect people from retaliation.

About Global Compliance

Ethics and compliance solutions provided by Global Compliance were developed to encourage organizational trust and transparency. From anonymous employee whistleblower hotline solutions to online harassment training and education programs, Global Compliance is dedicated to promoting business integrity by providing your organization with all the ethics and compliance tools needed to reduce organizational risk.

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