The past months, the internet blogosphere has been shaken and stirred by some social issues. As most of us have read or heard about, some bloggers have lost their job because of their on-site activities and the stories they’ve posted on their work and immediate job-environment.
Why can talking about your employer or collegues get you sacked today?
I think some things were said in a way even I’ve had a frown or two about, and maybe some people shouldn’t have been blogging at all, regarding the nature of their job. Should companies forbid employees to talk/blog about internal affairs? Yes. At first.
The reason why is very simple. Not everyone has the talent to wrap things up in a decent and acceptable way, and not everyone has had decent media training. Internet still is a ‘new’ medium to many people, despite its commercial existence for almost two decades. Many employees are ‘just a bit’ familiar with the upper layer of the web, but few know it’s true performance and power. And here lies the danger. When I looked around on the various jobs did, I saw a lot of people who lacked the competences for the job they were doing. The responsiblity given to them was higher than the knowledge they had to get the maximum out of their function.
Regarding this topic, I was reading Dana VanDen Heuvel’s marketing blog, and I couldn’t have agreed more with the things I’ve read there.
Truly, it is necessary for any company to set up a seminar or an active project about this topic, to inform and re-form all employees and make them aware of the power of the media nowadays, in particular internet.
It’s just too important for a company to control the informal stream of conversations for as much as humanly possible. The name, the image, the identity of the company depends on how employees feel inside the company walls. And if they feel bad, the causes of those conflicts should at first be analysed and treated internally. It would only make things worse if the management has to find out about internal conflicts through a personal blog. That’s not supporting the dialogue, and it’s not at all a constructive attitude. One possible solution to this problem, apart from prohibiting employees to practise a blog, is what Dana VanDen Heuvel suggests. There should be a standard training about the use and practise of new and digital media for all employees.
“(…) corporations would be well served to include a brief segment on ‘media awareness’ or ‘interacting in an Internet-induced consumer generated media world’ in the onboarding of each and every new hire. Further, existing employees should be required to at least view a video or go through an online tutorial on the subject, similar to how we have to go through sexual harassment training.”
In fact, one might even consider to give a full media training, so that in any case – should an employee become exposed to some sort of medium – the company’s image is presented at its best side.
If you still have any doubts about the ‘why’ and the urgentness of media training, I suggest you read Dana’s findings about the average employee. If I were to put this in my own words, it probably wouldn’t come out so sophisticated.
- The average employee still does not understand the power of the Internet and does not fully grasp the power of the media in today’s climate
- Most people have never dealt with the media, and the media are only getting more savvy – everyone in your company should know how to deflect media inquiries and handle themselves in front of the media
- Google, archived newsgroups, and social networking sites are not yet understood by the masses and they’re being used, right or wrong, to make decisions in the corporate and media world – people need to know about these things.
- People can loose their jobs over something that they didn’t know was an issue (granted, stupidity usually plays a part, but the innocent can be affected to…unless they’re educated)
Click here to go there and read more.
WRITE & WRONGS :
BLOGGERS RUN INTO TROUBLE ?
INSIDEGOOGLE ON MARK JEN