SIA bans work-related matters on personal blogs

SIA bans work-related matters on personal blogs

Esther Au Yong

30 May, 2008

my paper

WRITING about or posting photos about work on your personal blog is out of the question, said Singapore Airlines.

SIA, which has revealed to the public a part of its employee blogging and Internet usage guidelines, has clearly said that action would be taken against employees who violate this clause in its guidelines.

This was in reply to a post on citizen media website Stomp, which showed its employees - male and female cabin crew - posing for pictures which were splashed on their personal pages on popular social networking site Facebook.

In the past week, SIA has also had to deal with one of its employees writing a tell-all blog, which was picked up by the locla media.

A spokesman for SIA said, in an e-mail: "Singapore Airlines requires its employees to not post comments about workrelated issues on their personal blogs.

"The posting of images of the Airline's logo, aircraft and trademark, pictures of the Airline's training facilities or equipment, and materials detailing internal work processes, and safety and security measures are also not allowed.

"This is to protect the privacy of customers and staff who will not have consented to their images or interactions with us being published."

The SIA spokesman added that action would be taken against individulas who violate the guidelines.

Human resource practitioners my paper spoke to said that while SIA's move is timely, there has generally been a lack of proper guidelines for employees' Internet activities among local companies.

Mr Victor Lai, 38, the head of business development and operational efficiency at HR consulting firm Achieve, said:

"There are just far too many avenues on the Internet that may possibly be abused by employees.

There should bemore monitoring by the bosses.

"Also, there should be more education by the employers to ensure their employees understand the consequences of their conduct."

Mr Josh Goh, 34, of staffing and HR consultancy company GMP, agreed: "From what I've seen, most guidelines that local companies have may be too vague. These managements need to look into phrasing specific clauses so as to preventmisunderstanding."

SIA isn't the first organisation here that has had to deal with such postings by its employees.

In another incident recently, which was also posted on Stomp, a police national serviceman was found to be posing with firearms and handcuffs in a photo on his Facebook account.

A police spokesman had said in an e-mail then that "investigation has been initiated against the national serviceman".