Study Finds Most Employers Lack Blogging Policy

Posted on February 27, 2006

A Star Telegram article begins with the latest blog related firing -- a reporter who was fired for offensive postings on his blog -- and then lists several other blog firings that we have already heard about more than once. The article also cites a recent study by the Employment Law Alliance that found just 15% of employers have a policy about blogging.

Employers are unprepared for blogging's impact, according to the Employment Law Alliance, a network of labor- and employment-law firms. It conducted a telephone poll of 1,000 adults in January that found about 5 percent of American workers maintain personal blogs, but only 15 percent of employers have a policy that directly addresses blogging.
That concerns Stephen Hirschfeld, a labor lawyer and the chief executive of the alliance, because companies could find themselves in sticky litigation if they fire someone for what he wrote on his blog.
"Both in respect to blogging or other nonblogging activities, you have to put employees on notice of do's and don'ts," he said.
The poll also found that 59 percent of employees believe that employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate workers who post confidential or proprietary information concerning the employers.

Many employees will probably see an update to the employee handbook in the near future that covers blogging. Paul Bourgeois at Startle Grams is not concerned by the "bloggery madness."

I feel their pain.
I get in trouble, and blogging is my work.
But I believe this problem will take care of itself in time.
Soon everyone will have their own blog and be too busy to read anybody else.