BLR Survey Identifies Social Media as Biggest Policy Challenge for Employers

Business & Legal Reports, Inc. (BLR) has released its HR report, 2012 Policy Survey, which has revealed that about 42 percent of respondents reported that social media policies would be the biggest challenge for their company in 2013. Social media policies were twice as likely to be reported as most challenging than the next most popular, cell phone use/distracted driving, which received 21.6 percent of the vote. While social media policies are obviously challenging organizations’ ability to adapt, many employers indicated that they were taking at least one step to remain up-to-date. Half of respondents said that they plan to update their social media policy within the next six months.

As reported by the survey, which polled a total of 541 organizations in July 2012, the percentage of employers reporting other policies as their number one biggest challenge included: attendance and punctuality (17.4 percent), computers/Internet (15.9 percent), Family and Medical Leave Act (15.9 percent), background checks (15.6 percent), eligibility for benefits (14.7 percent), PTO/vacation (13.2 percent), employee leave of absence (11.1 percent), reductions in force (11.1 percent), telecommuting (11.1 percent), dress code/personal appearance (10. 2 percent), ethics/conflicts of interest (9.6 percent), substance abuse (8.7 percent), training (8.4 percent), harassment/discrimination (7.5 percent), confidentiality/proprietary information (6.9 percent), other (6.9 percent), employment at will (3.3 percent), solicitation (3.0 percent), and military/reserve leave (1.8 percent).