Group items tagged

notifying employees of clear rules on what is acceptable and what is not, balancing the need to monitor with the employees' reasonable expectations of privacy and weighing the overall benefits of allowing personal usage against the risks of doing so, are all issues with which managers will be familiar.

For employers, the temptation to utilise sites such as Facebook and MySpace may also lead them into trouble. Some employers view the scanning of such sites for information on prospective employees as legitimate; others view it as distasteful and intrusive (the equivalent of rummaging through a candidate's personal items). Whatever the view, employers adopting this approach would do well to heed the warning of the TUC's guidance on online social networking. This guidance reminds employers that only a minority of potential staff will have a public profile on a social network, so using information from this source can give either an unfair advantage or disadvantage to certain candidates, as well as leaving the employer open to the accusation of discrimination.

Employers have had to grapple with the issues raised by employee use of the Internet for some years and the rise of online social networking presents another challenge. There is no obvious conclusion here; employers will have to do what they consider to be correct in the light of their business concerns, their employee relations and their business culture. The dilemma posed by the heightened risks surrounding online social networking, whether to trust or restrict employees, does not lead to one "right" answer, but there is certainly a "wrong" answer. Given the ever-growing popularity of such sites and the potential consequences for employers of employee misuse, simply ignoring the issue can only lead to problems for the unwary employer.

"Didn't See That Coming? Why Many Employers are Vulnerable to Employee Fraud"

"Employee theft and fraud is on the increase - and an Australian start-up company believes it has pioneered a means of early detection. According to a recent survey conducted by KPMG, the total funds lifted from organisations came to $345 million - a significant increase from the $301 million of 2008, totalling 174,914 cases. "Employee fraud is a growing concern for organisations in all business sectors both in monetary and reputational terms," says Alon Spitzer, who has founded Integrity Elements, a company specialising in the new field of ' integrity testing and valuation'."

According to The Wilson Organisation, insurers and underwriters are predicting a rise in white collar extortion as the recession continues to bite and unemployment figures increase. Worryingly many businesses do not have insurance cover for data or business loss. "According to a DTI Information Security Breaches Survey, a third of UK businesses think general business insurance provides full cover for damage to the business arising from data loss," comments Wilsons' Simon Hoare, "but the reality is quite different, with very few businesses likely to be insured against the result of cyber attacks on its most crucial management and business tool - corporate and customer information, most of which is today held on corporate IT systems. "For public company directors, this is in fact in breach of their duties under the Turnbull Report, which requires them to identify, manage and take an informed opinion on the transfer of risks for the business."

"Research finds while most employees believe they understand their company's security policies, a large number have never received any formal policy education or training. How can an organization really ensure people understand risk?"