Many businesses know the importance of HR policies and have those required by law in place. This is helped by bodies such as ACAS and other government body websites (gov.uk) that offer free resources to help with compliance in this area.
As businesses grow and become more complex in nature, the need for clear and transparent policies becomes essential, to avoid employment tribunals or reputational damage. The latter was recently the case for the BBC, when their Match of the Day sports correspondent, Gary Lineker, was taken off air. The reason: a Twitter post which expressed his opinion on a new government policy in relation to asylum seekers. The BBC said it considered Lineker’s “recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines”, adding that he should “keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies”. Lineker was quickly reinstated, but it did draw attention to the BBC social media policy – should Gary Lineker be airing his own political views whilst representing the BBC?
Bringing this around to HR, the social media policy in question, which was updated in 2020 had some grey areas. The main points were that the policy referenced ‘staff’ with The Guardian specifically expressing ‘Lineker is a freelance broadcaster for the BBC and not a permanent member of staff” and secondly the policy referred to news and political editors, which Lineker was neither. Which is where it shows that if businesses such as the BBC can get it wrong, then SMEs might need a little support from time to time.
Luckily, we at McKinney HR can help you navigate the world of policies, procedures, processes, codes of conduct and best practice to ensure a consistent approach and precedent for all employees. And…being a small business ourselves, we know the financial restraints businesses can have. This is why we have a Pay as you go and Rolling Year Pay Monthly (with no obligation to renew) options.
Contact us to discuss your business – big, or small!
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