How to deal with inappropriate posts on your internal communications channels
One of the most common push backs teams face when rolling out an Enterprise Social Network (ESN), is the question; “What happens if someone posts something inappropriate?”. Inappropriate posts can happen, but they are usually rare and, in most cases, the post was never meant to be malicious or inappropriate.
Moderating posts
An inappropriate or offensive post can be classed as anything that could cause offense or harm to a person or group of people.
This includes:
Defamatory comments
Discrimination, bullying or harassing posts
Negative comments about a person’s physical appearance, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or culture
Breaches of confidentiality or copyright, such as sharing private or sensitive information
Dealing with first time offenders
If comfortable, we would recommend you reach out to the person privately and ask them to take down the post. Refer to your organisation’s policies about posting on internal social media channels, and suggest they delete the post themselves.
If you don’t want to message the employee privately, most ESNs have the ability to report a post and usually group admins can delete any post that violates any of your policies or procedures. By removing the post, it will avoid drawing additional attention to the comment or person involved.
It’s important to remind the offender that an internal social network is a professional platform and any comments will be attributed to the poster.
Issuing of warnings and repercussions for serial offenders
If you find you have a serial offender on your hands, then you’ll need to work closely with HR or your employee relations team. In the first instance, try picking up directly with their line manager. You’ll need to inform them why you’re contacting them and refer them to your terms of use and any policies that have been breached.
If the offender continues, you can issue sanctions on Viva Engage and Workplace from Meta and temporarily disable their account. You will need to work with your Viva Engage or Workplace verified admin to do this. You can decide on the amount of time. If that doesn’t deter them, then you can permanently disable the account.
Removing posts
We’d only ever recommend removing posts that go against your organisation’s policies and procedures. Never remove a post if people don’t agree with the content, or someone has given wrong information. Ask the person who’s asking for the post to be removed to respond with either the correct information or statement.
ESNs are a great way to give everyone a voice across the organisation, and the ability to be heard. They can transform the way you work, they give colleagues the opportunity to share their ideas and know-how and you can create safe spaces for employees to build networks and meet others they wouldn’t usually meet.
Managed well – they are an incredible communications channel. Book a demo with SWOOP Analytics to see how we can help manage your Viva Engage or Workplace from Meta network.
