Pub. 1 2023 Issue 1

By Fisher Phillips OVER-SHARING in the WORKPLACE? Why Your Company May Need a TikTok and BeReal Policy By now, many of us have seen a TikTok video filmed at someone’s workplace — a “day in the life” video, someone complaining about their coworkers, supervisors, or customers, or someone talking about an unrelated subject while at the office. And a relatively new platform, BeReal, goes a step further by encouraging users to provide an unfiltered view into their “real” everyday life at random moments throughout the day. Of course, such organic social media clips can be a valuable tool that helps market your brand and build stronger employee relationships — but where do you draw the line? These posts might include employees performing their duties during a meeting with coworkers or at a workstation, which raises privacy and confidentiality concerns. Moreover, employees flocking to social media to discuss their bosses and general work experiences — positive or negative — could lead to other troubles. When these videos go viral, employees may become unofficial spokespersons for your organizations, influencing the conversation about work norms and creating trends that impact employers globally. With these changing dynamics, you may want to set new guidelines for social media use while ensuring your policies don’t run afoul of employment and labor laws. Here are four tips for updating your social media policies to reflect this modern era and stay on top of the latest developments: 1. ENSURE POLICIES REFLECT RECENT TRENDS In the early days of widespread social media use, your policies may have simply prohibited employees from using company equipment to post non-work-related content online and required work posts to be business appropriate. But social media use is rapidly evolving in new ways that you may not have anticipated when your policies were first drafted. 20

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