Is Workplace Social Media Policy making us two faced?

Social media is part of most of our lives. Most of us have a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account for our personal lives. For our professional lives, one might have Linkedin. Most of these accounts have an option to share where we work. Society has also become more comfortable sharing conversations especially with groups of family and friends online.

However most of our workplace have a bunch of policies, rules and regulations of how we should be using social media in our personal lives. Most of the rules are around not divulging corporate non-public material, but there are also rules around not bringing bad reputation to the company we work for. The line becomes blurry, especially for public servants, when employees are both staff and customer.

Employees have been fired for complaining about bosses or their company on Facebook. But what happens for public servants, say a public school teacher with a child in the school he teaches at? Parents talk close to anything online. It's not uncommon to discuss an bullying issue on Facebook. But if that teacher does so, he could be liable for bringing bad reputation to the school he teaches at and hence face disciplinary action.

Some of us have opted not to disclose where we work on social media. But for those who don't,  they face the issue about being two-faced. Are we becoming one-way in our real life face-to-face circles and another way in our online social media circles? If social media is our most common form of keeping in touch with your friends living abroad, are we then as if another person to them?

In some workplaces, the social media policy includes not posting photos of colleagues or even mention them in social media. Does this then mean you can't be friends outside work? What about friends whom have introduced you into a company? Does it mean once you join you can't be like normal friends online?

Alternatively, some of public servants have opted either to work far from home, so that the services we use are not work related. Or to go far away to use services if work is nearby.

It does all sound quite ridiculous. But work seems to be invading our private lives after all. Boundaries are often confusing to most and people tend to not test this boundary as their livelihood is at risk. Is the problem due to a 'social media scared' older generation of managers writing policies? Is never attempting social media, or not understanding social media, or only hearing the bad stories from the press influencing the people writing policies?

Check out this, in 1915, these were rules for teachers.

Source: MendorRail History

Is then today's workplace social media policy seems to be a modern version of these lifestyle rules? What do you think?

Disclaimer: I don't represent my workplace or the ideas of my workplace in this post! That is if you find out where I work.

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