It is not just India?s political class, especially the reigning UPA government that has had sleepless nights post the Shashi Tharoor tweeting episode. Even India Inc has started doling out disciplinary lessons to its workforce on the use of social networking and micro-blogging sites like Twitter. Even though a large percentage of corporates lack a clear policy on employee usage of sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, the country?s second largest software firm, Infosys Technologies, is framing a policy for its employees to prevent them from sharing any organisation-centric information, which could be confidential and sensitive, on new-age platforms like Twitter.
TV Mohandas Pai, director, HR, Infosys, told FE that the company is putting in place guidelines that will clearly list out the ?dos? and the ?don?ts? for its workforce while interacting on such sites. ?Employees can?t share any confidential information about the company and can?t hold out on its behalf unless authorised,? he said. Pai also added that like all other tech companies, Infosys has confidentiality agreements with its employees, the breach of which invites disciplinary action. ?Sites like Twitter are new platforms and so they have to be brought under the purview too,? he said.
Analysts tracking the technology space feel that though too much control and monitoring by employers defeats the entire purpose of social media, it is just a matter of time before other companies will follow in the footsteps of Infosys. ?Companies need to have a policy in place, since sites like Twitter work like a public forum where anyone can see your posts, its web is growing by the day and moreover it?s real-time. Not having a policy could be a dangerous proposition as sometimes employees don?t even realise that the information they are sharing could be used to the firm?s disadvantage by competitors,? said Deepak Kumar, general manager, communications research, IDC India, which tracks the technology sector.
In the recent past, sites like Twitter have caught the fancy of the corporate world, with leading corporate houses like Reliance, Infosys, Mahindra, TCS, Microsoft India, MTVIndia and Wipro among others, using these for not just disseminating information but also for interacting with their customers on a real-time basis. For instance, Kingfisher Airlines has put in place a dedicated team which manages its official account on Twitter and provides not just flight updates but also helps passengers with their queries. Firms like TCS are even twitting live updates from press conferences on Twitter for their audience. However, apart from the official company pages, Twitter is swarmed with senior leaders and junior employees of companies who share real-time personal and professional updates.
According to a study by US-based Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, only 10% of the surveyed companies have a policy on the use of social networks, while 50% of respondents said their company doesn?t have a policy for employee online activity outside the workplace at all. ?We encourage employees to use their judgment when choosing to blog or tweet or while using any micro-blogging service. As befits a responsible individual, we advise them to post sensibly. If an employee plans to write about any professional matter, the advice is to declare that she or he is a Microsoft employee. We trust our employees to respect company-confidential information ? the same ?rules? that apply to sharing information in the physical world apply online. It boils down to using good judgment and common sense,? said Meenu Handa, director, corporate communications, Microsoft India. Companies like Gartner and HCL Technologies also share a similar view.