CorpComms Magazine

One in five businesses have taken disciplinary action against an employee because they have made an inappropriate comment about a colleague on a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter, a new study has shown.

And three out of ten have taken action against employees who have made inappropriate comments about their organisations.

The Knowing your tweet from your trend: keeping pace with social media in the workplace report by law firm DLA Piper found that only one in four businesses have a social media policy even though 76 per cent are active on such networking sites.

The survey also found that 34 per cent of employers believe there is a risk that confidential information may be posted on social media sites.

Almost nine out of ten companies surveyed (86 per cent) have a presence on Facebook, while 78 per cent have a LinkedIn page and 62 per have a Twitter feed.  Four out of five companies claim they have a social media presence to raise their brand profiles, while 60 per cent do so for marketing purposes. Four out of ten companies use social media for recruitment purposes.

Kate Hodgkiss, partner in DLA Piper's employment practice, said: 'Our respondents recognised the benefits of social media to get their messages out to a wide audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods and far more quickly. But businesses need to understand how to minimise the risks.'

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