Don’t forget about confidentiality when training your employees on social media

I’m not getting Snapchat. Maybe I’ve finally found a social channel that doesn’t fit me. Or, maybe I’m just too late to the game. Or, maybe with Twitter, and LinkedIn, and Facebook, and Instagram, and this blog, I don’t have the time or attention for one more social channel.

You know who does get Snapchat? Apparently some staffers of Australia’s Labor Party, who snapped some screens of their party’s confidential campaign strategy.

Via Buzzfeed:

Labor staffers have been caught taking Snapchats of campaign databases that outline the party’s door-knocking and cold-call strategy. Snaps seen by BuzzFeed News show the NSW Liberal-held marginal seat of Dobell is Labor’s most door-knocked seat in Australia this week and has been labelled as easily winnable.

Photo via Buzzfeed, https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/bend-and-snap?utm_term=.ivJvxkrkD&sub=4280990_8912729

While this is marginally interesting if you’re into the politics of Australian parliamentary politics, it’s much more interesting from an employment perspective. Like it or not, your employees are on social media. And one of the most glaring risks from this activity is a breach of confidentiality. And, once that cat’s out of the bag, it’s out. Goodbye confidential info.

So, what do you do? The one thing you’re not going to do is stop your employees from posting and sharing. Instead, you need to educate your employees. Write social media into your confidentiality policies and agreements, and train your employees on what those policies and agreements mean. Generationally speaking, Millennials and, to a lesser degree, Xers think little about sharing everything on social media. You need to dispel them of the urge to share your company’s confidences and secrets (NLRA protected concerted activity excepted), and make it clear that if they do, you will dispel them from their employment.