with links to their blogs or Twitter feeds? Is it appropriate to view
that content, and more importantly, is it appropriate to make
employment decisions based on that content?
In Argentina, companies consider social media to be “work
tools,” meaning employers can monitor employees’ usage time,
though they cannot monitor the content that the employees
post. In France, companies can use content only for work-related
decisions or evaluations; all elements related to privacy content
must be excluded from consideration. The United States has
legislation protecting the rights of all workers to discuss workplace
conditions. Blogs or discussion boards where multiple employees
are engaged in topics that fall into this category have some
protection under the National Labor Relations Act, depending on
the factual nature and intent of the comments. The United Arab
Emirates (UAE) lacks a similar law but has other considerations,
including the UAE, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore,
where the penetration exceeds 70 percent. Organizations now
face the decision of how to approach BYOD. They might reduce
capital expenditures and possibly improve employee engagement,
because employees will be using a device of their choosing.
However, IT issues will increase, because configuration will be
needed for multiple device platforms, and, even more challenging,
privacy issues of content on the device will increase.
If employees use their own devices and connect to an
organization’s network infrastructure, it is not clear to what extent
media or files stored on a device can be subject to scans and/or
policies, particularly with clearly segregated data. For example,
can photos taken on a personal device be subject to a scan? What
about browsing history? Should employees be allowed to use their
own mobile data packages and access their social media from
When desktop or laptop computers were the primary methods of integrating social media, it
was simple to block access to sites or restrict use on corporate hardware. As smartphones,
BlackBerrys and tablets have now become essential components, the global workplace faces the
challenge of balancing privacy concerns with organizational needs.
such as defamation, insulting the culture, norms and so on.
Cultural sensitivities in the UAE, particularly among conservative
families, can have significant impacts on social media strategies.
Images posted on corporate Facebook websites (including
recruitment microsites) can cause unintended fallout from
seemingly innocent events, such as group lunches or celebrations.
However, social media usage in the Middle East is becoming an
essential part of life. According to a study by Performics MENA, 85
percent of interested users polled have at least one social media
account, and 61 percent have two or more. The number of mobile
phones per capita is an indicator of the growth of mobile social
media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and
this growth will rapidly bring the issues of privacy to the forefront:
Saudi Arabia — 1.7 phones per capita; UAE — 1.4 phones; Iran —
1.3 phones; Egypt — 1.1 phones. As organizations increase their
presence through corporate Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites,
the overlap between personal and corporate social media outlets
will increase.
In the area of privacy, a new concern is the rise of “bring
your own device” (BYOD) for corporate mobile solutions. Just
five years ago, organizations provided the mobile solution for
their workforces, in the form of either a BlackBerry or another
standardized device. This allowed the organization to control
usage by owning the device and thus having full content and
access control via policy. A combination of price and lack of
platform adoption by social media made the privacy concerns a
nonissue. Flash forward to today, when smartphones account for
greater than 60 percent of the mobile market in nine countries,
22 CERTIFIED
2014: Volume I
work, even during meal or other break times?
Organizations need to determine their positions on social
media for employees. In 2012, the first GCC Government Social
Media Summit debated whether social media are simply a
fad. In 2013, the debates centered around the best ways for
governments to use social media as a tool to engage with their
respective populations. This stance puts more direct interaction
between organizations and individuals and further blurs the line of
appropriate usage of social media in the workplace. Governments
may distribute key information to citizens and residents via social
media channels, adding information to the respective profiles of
each employee, based on his or her status within the country.
As an employer, in 2004, I was preparing to launch an
employee satisfaction survey for the entire division of a large
global bank. In the last days before the survey launched, we had to
delay its distribution to associates in the U.K. because our vendor
was not in compliance with data-privacy regulations; there was a
direct link to the survey access through employees’ IDs.
Ignoring social media as a possible data point for company
decisions is a futile effort. For example, here in the GCC, my
organization had an employee who had returned from annual
leave. Nearly two months later, my wife mentioned during dinner
that she read something on one of the expat discussion boards —
just the normal venting of frustrations from people living abroad.
Then my wife said, “Does this sound like your company?” She read
the generic description from one post. It certainly fit the profile.
There was a link to the person’s blog at the end of the mini-rant, so
I followed it. It was a personal blog of a traveling spouse keeping
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