Professional Boundaries on Social Media

    Scenario: Despite having a social media policy in place, a client was concerned that staff were posting inappropriate comments on Facebook which could jeopardise the reputation of the client’s business. Some staff had perceived the comments as general ‘banter’ however the client was concerned how other staff and potential customers could interpret the comments.

    To prevent any potential risk to the business, the client felt it important to raise staffs’ awareness on the implications of social media to the workplace. To address this; a short, interactive, be-spoke course was designed and delivered by Jacqueline which covered the following:

    • State what is professional boundary?
    • Recognise acceptable versus unacceptable behaviour in use of social media
    • Identify the impact of social media on professional boundaries
    • Review examples of social media legal cases

    The course was delivered to all staff and the feedback was that they found the course very useful as they didn’t fully understand the social media policy. Some people said that the course was an ‘eye opener’ as they hadn’t appreciated that some of their ‘friends’/ connections on social media were customers and potential customers.  Below is further feedback received from the course;

    “Very interesting and made you think”

    “The whole course was beneficial to my role in and out of the workplace”

    “To see the impact small issues can have”

    “Plenty of helpful examples”

    “Course was excellent”

    “Very good content to think about before discussing or posting anything on Social media”

    “I thought the scenarios were beneficial as it gave insight as what was acceptable and what was not”

    Evaluation was conducted 6 and 9 months after the course was delivered. Results indicated that on line ‘behaviour’ had significantly improved. There was no longer inappropriate comments or content posted.

    The course not only minimised risk to the client’s business but also saved the client time in having to spend time explaining to staff the implications of social media to the workplace.

    The above course is now available as a webinar (https://jmpotential.co.uk/events/professional-boundaries-on-social-media/)

    If interested to learn further details about the course, please feel free to get in touch (www.jmpotential.co.uk/contact-us/)