If the telephone were new today, just appearing in the workplace, would we be sorting out issues of whether or not employees should be able to place calls and speak their minds to customers and other employees?
We probably would.
So it is that public relations people today are scrambling to figure out the dynamics of employee blogging: usage trends, what’s being said, with what impact. But new research by Dr. Donald K. Wright, University of South Alabama, and Michelle Hinson, Institute for Public Relations, may be the first to look specifically at practitioners’ views of the ethics of what employee bloggers say and how employers react.
The term “blog” is an abbreviation of “weblog,” a special type of website known for commentary and opinion that is both personal and unfiltered. A blog generally features not only the views of its creator, but also those of readers who wish to respond. When employees become bloggers, it can be to share information and expertise with customers and other employees, to seek feedback on ideas, and to build relationships.
Wright and Hinson’s paper reported on a web-based study of 294 public relations practitioners, 56 percent of whom are based outside the U.S. The paper was presented last month at the International Public Relations Research Conference.
Forty-four percent of respondents said they are aware of situations where employees (of their own organization or a client’s) have openly communicated on blogs. Not surprisingly, more positive than negative things are being written.
But when an employee blogger goes negative, what then? Almost half of respondents said it is ethical for employees to write and post negative statements about their organizations. One-third disagreed and 18 percent answered “uncertain.”
A substantial majority of 79 percent said it is ethical for organizations to monitor what their employees are writing on their blogs. Furthermore, 59 percent said it is ethical for an organization to discipline an employee who writes negative statements, and 54 percent said discipline would be appropriate in such cases.
Although a broad majority (89 percent) agreed that it is ethical for an organization to research or measure what employees write in their blogs, only three percent of organizations have actually commissioned or conducted such research.
Given that as much as five percent of the workforce now blogs, according to research from the Employment Law Alliance, the organizational stakes are high and getting higher. Are employee blogs an important opportunity to humanize the corporation and reinforce credibility? Or an open door for confidential information and negative attitudes to slip out?
Wright and Hinson point out that, according to the Employment Law Alliance study, only 15 percent of U.S. companies have specific policies addressing work-related blogging. It is time for employers to come to grips not only with ethical considerations relating to employee blogging, but a full range of issues relating to an ever-more open business environment and what employee-generated media have to offer.
