What control/guidelines (if any) should a company provide over an individual's Linkedin profile?

Wow! This is a timely question indeed. Freedom of speech allows for many interpretations of what's right and wrong with the Social Media craze, however considering that Social Media has been around for ages - we've just automated it, the same methodologies and rules exist. Here's just a couple of examples ...

1. LinkedIn belongs to all of us and we have the right to maintain a presence.
2. There should be no negative comments relating to the current employer. Comments like "I've not received a raise at XYZ company in 2-years" are not allowed. If you can't say something nice then say nothing at all.
3. Business act ivies - example: new and pending contracts, customers, annual sales, and other company specifics should only be revealed upon written company permission.
4. Non-Disclosure terms must always be considered. If you've signed an agreement not to disclose your employment, then honor that agreement.
5. Tell the Truth. Mom and Dad taught us that. If you were a manager in Customer Service, it's best not to say you were the Chief Financial Officer.
6. While working for a company you have the right to seek other employment as long as it does not interfere with current employment performance or otherwise do great harm to your current employer.
7. Use some common sense. Seems that carries a lot of weight.
8. If the company would like you to help them develop their brand then have a separate account for those endeavors. Think business card here.
9. Don't be shy in creating YOUR brand - it will be around long after your current employment.

Clearly there will be considerable discussion as the automated Social Media evolution matures.

Dan Belanger, President, Beltech Group

I don't think that a company can have any control over an individual's LinkedIn profile, and nor can they "recommend" content.

My LinkedIn profile is precisely that ... my LinkedIn profile! Yes I have a link to my company website, yes I quote the job that I do, and yes I use LinkedIn to generate business and interest for the company I work for today (today is the key word!). What my profile is not, is a company profile. My company has it's own corporate presence on LinkedIn, and that meets all of the corporate requirements around content and messaging.

If I was forced to change my profile to what my company wanted, then I would simply remove references to that company, so that there would be no discussion. However, it is in my company's interest for me to "promote" them by association. Many customers have told me that they look at my profile during the process of the first engagement, to see what my experience is and how good a fit I might be for them.

Companies have no business being concerned about an individuals LinkedIn profile, it's personal and has nothing to do with the company. Like Richard indicated, my linkedin profile is my linkedin profile.

Now that being said, I don't have an issue if my company asked me to promote them in my profile by somehow enhancing the brand, but again, my decision, not theirs.

Looks like there are two camps to this question and I'm landing squarely in the "no business" camp.

A caveat though - if a company is paying for upgraded LinkedIn account for an employee - then I would say they have a right to moderate content.

Otherwise, the only thing a company has a right to do is suggest and ask employees to follow guidelines. I do not believe they have any further rights. I would suggest to companies that they ask employees to put "Views in LinkedIn are my own." on their profiles.

As Chapter President of Social Media Club in Portland Oregon (one of the five gamma chapters worldwide), I met a few months ago with the Portland OR chapter of SHRM (with over 1,000 members). They had requested the meeting and during it, indicated that a majority of their membership were struggling to understand the ramifications of social media in the human resource sector.

To the extent that such guidelines are about how the company name should be presented, I have no issue with such guidelines.

Outside of that very narrow criterion, an employer has as much right over the content and layout of my LinkedIn profile as they do of the format and content of my resume. Which is to say: none.

Folks I think you're all looking at this via a big company approach. If you work at a small company and rely on internet marketing to feed your sales funnel, every profile and link and employee LinkedIn profile matters.

Not one employee last week at boot camp had an issue with us beefing up their LinkedIn profiles to help market their current employer. They thought it was great and they were all happy to have the knowledge. And most important, they were happy to help market their company and present it in the best possible light.

If you go to a trade show looking as professional as possible to help aid in marketing your company, why wouldn't you do the same with your online profile?

I view this as being a team player and working towards a common goal.

As Dan says it comes down to common sense and business ethics by the individual. You are building your own brand not that of the company that you work/ed for. If you make false claims, state emotive not factual comments or disclose sensitive information then your brand will be tarnished and you will shoot yourself in the foot.

I have helped recruitment companies in the past with supplying their clients with great hires and some of the resumes I have seen would make you weep: emotive remarks about former companies and how rubbish they were for example.

All of my contacts on LI are true professionals: they understand the rules on this. If I had contacts there who did not I would want to delete them as by association my brand would be tainted.

Employers are temporary, yet important milestones along the way of establishing your own brand and have no say in your LI account.

As a small business owner that has international, national and regional clients, and not paying for my employees LinkedIn memberships, I don't have any right to enforce how employees maintain their social network profiles. I do have an expectation that they represent all their activities ethically. But then, I only partner/hire people that meet that expectation.

From a practical standpoint, who in any organization today has the time to police employee LinkedIn accounts??

Another issue here is where the Company draws the line on getting involved in an employee's Internet postings. Does a Company only dictate guidelines for LinkedIn? Or does it include Facebook? What about others??

From a legal standpoint, in cases where the Employer was demanding changes/input into the employees' Internet postings/Profiles,the lower courts (this topic has not yet been escalated beyond local courts) so far have found for the employee on the basis of the right to free speech--Constitutional law. Major assumption here: the Employer is not using the employee's Profile for their business purposes.

Another consideration, though one not mentioned much, is the consequences to the Employer if they dictate what can and can't be said on the employee's posting. If the employee's posting is found by the courts to be in violation of law the Employer could be named as a Defendant. Example: John Doe has posted what his employer required him to post per their guidelines on his LinkedIn account, but on the remainder of his Profile (and unrelated to his current Employer) he has also violated some trademarks, service marks, misrepresented other facts, plagiarized some material for his use, et al., the Employer could theoretically be named a Defendant in any legal action. Why? Simply because they had a hand in the Profile. While this may be theoretical, why would any Company want to expose themselves unnecessarily, even if they could be found not to be "involved" in any wrong doing?!

Bottom line: Employers should not dictate personal behavior (words and deeds)of their employees, unless they are willing to accept the consequences.

I don't think it is simple as saying companies can have no say in their employees' LI profiles.
If I gave an interview to a magazine, say, which mentioned my employer and also endorsed a political party, that would be a clear breach of our code of ethics, as it could be seen that this was an endorsement of the party by my employer. I think this policy is widespread in larger companies.
So why shouldn't this carry over to LI? If you mention your current employer, it is not entirely clear whether your site is speaking for you or your employer unless you make it very clear.
I think companies (especially larger ones) maybe need to clarify their position on this point, or there will be tears eventually!
The only way to be clear that you can say what you like on your profile is to not mention your current employer by name in your profile.
The previous suggestion about a disclaimer is a very good one.

A few months ago, in my role as Chapter President of one of Social Media Club (International)'s gamma chapters, Social Media Club PDX, I was invited to meet with the Portland OR chapter of SHRM (with over 1000 local members). They indicated during that meeting that many of their membership were struggling with just this question.

Also, at the beginning of the year, our chapter invited the City of Portland's Deputy Attorney to speak. A portion of her presentation delved into the challenges that local governments face in this area.

It would be interesting in this discussion to see a response from an attorney specializing in human resource law.

As an individual I'm all for keeping personal things personal. However, I have no problem with an employer who provides guidance for how they are portrayed on LinkedIn or other networking sites.

It is often the case that someone goes too far on the company side and things they have the right or authority to demand out of office behavior and this includes companies that dictate your private online activities. This goes too far.

Making recommendations to help ensure coherence and useful marketing is fine, making hard rules or demands of individuals delves into First Amendment rights of free speech and will always backfire creating an adversarial relationship with employee who already distrust management that overstep privacy and out of the office activities. In this case most LinkIn.com activities have a tendency to enhance and benefit the company and interfering with employees could tarnish a companies reputation.

In my opinion, if the employee's profile is specifically for marketing and furthering the company, then the company shall have full control. However, if the profile is the employee's personal profile, then the employer should exercise caution in terms of placing restrictions on what the employee can and cannot put on their own profile, in order to protect our First Amendment Rights. However, I believe every employer should have a policy that is written to address this exact type of issue. Basically, if the employee puts any type of material/information/data that the company has defined as proprietary or confidential, then the employee has no legal right to publicize that info on the web without express consent from the company. This would likely be a breach of confidentiality, which every company should have a policy on. If the information is not considered confidential and proprietary, but damages, or has the potential, to harm or damage the company's reputation or hinder the company's ability to engage in its normal business operations, then the employer can ask that the info be removed, but there is likely going to be some gray area there. There are a variety of other issues to be considered when monitoring an employee's personal profile page by employers.

I addressed this question in a blog post I wrote earlier this summer entitled "Social Media Data "Ownership": Recommendations for Employers." Here's a link:

http://www.sminorgs.net/2011/06/social-media-data-ownership-recommendations-f...

There is a definite tension between the individual and the organization that needs to be well managed, one that has important legal ramifications as well. Once the dust settles, I think we'll find that employers absolutely have the right to dictate terms of use for their current employees, but those rights aren't absolute.

Just to add to my initial post. I think that everyone is getting far too carried away with legal ramifications here!

I do not use my LinkedIn to advertise or comment on my own company. I simply promote the fact that I work for Aspect, as I did with my last employers. I don't use my personal profile to advertise my company or to discuss it's virtues. Surely that's not what a personal profile is for? I don't know if I am missing something here?

After reviewing the comments again, I want to reiterate that this is fundamentally a legal issue, and that the legal precedents for many aspects of how an individual represents him/herself and his/her employer on LinkedIn or any other public platform are well established (whereas others are in dispute).

This is not a First Amendment issue, nor is it a privacy issue.

In addition to my post about data ownership, folks may also be interested in a piece I wrote entitled "Social Media Policies: Necessary but not Sufficient." Here's a link:

http://tiny.cc/SMinOrgsPolicyPost

Other related posts that might be of interest:

Social Screening: Candidates - and Employers - Beware

http://tiny.cc/SocialScreeningPaper

Social Screening of Job Candidates: Focusing on the Facts

http://tiny.cc/SocialScreeningFacts

Social Media and Recruiting 101: Overview and Recommendations

http://tiny.cc/SocialRecruiting101

They shouldn't it would be like a company dictating your overall activities online when you're not at the office, or telling you what you can have on a resume, or even that you can't have an active resume or any professional credentials listed online during the term of your employment, or dictating guidelines for that.

They can't dictate those things nor should they.

None, but we should always remember the great quote from Bill Clinton after the Monica affair. When asked what he had learned from the episode, he replied "Don't say or do anything you don't want to see on the evening news." The same wisdom holds true here. Even though what is done on Linked In is out of the purview of one's employer, don't say anything you don't want published--because that's exactly what you are doing with your posts.

I think it all depends on the matter of the business. I really don't want the teller at the bank going on linked in and commenting on my bank account. So its all really based on good taste. A perfect example: my wife works for a local hospital that was hit by the tornado in Joplin, MO, if she goes on a social media site and complains about the conditions or patients she could be terminated. Personally I don't agree with it, I believe that everyone needs a way to vent and some people use facebook. That being said it still poses wiggle room for lawsuits if your slamming your employer (if your at a big company like my wife). Myself I encourage my employees to use social media on their breaks, and they often tend to talk about work and mention my name making my hits go higher on the search engines.

I would think that any content relating to the organization that an individual chooses to post should be consistent to what the company brand is. If the person choose to use the company website, blog or other company generated content that is their prerogative. Thought they should do so within guidelines the company has created. They would not send out letters to prospective clients with whatever content they wanted and that same brand control should extend here, IF they choose to use company assets.

If someone chooses to make their profile about them and only lists the employer as that an employer and neither promotes or disparages the employer then it should be a hands off place for them to self-promote.

I do believe that employers should have more control over who they allow to be associated with their company. Essentially I can claim I work for any company and there doesn't appear that there is much that company can do other than request I remove my reference to them. We have past employees who we would prefer not list us as their current employer, but we have no recourse if they choose not to update their information.

There is a short answer -- yes (but maybe a long explanation). LinkedIn, like most social media outlets,can be monitored and controlled. You need to have a policy in place; if you don't have a solid policy, there is nothing to enforce. Your policy should allow you to "reserve your right" to monitor pages when it impacts your workplace, and that they have no expectation of privacy in public postings. Once you create a policy, train your employees on the policy: make sure they understand what they can and cannot do. Then comes the practice; enforce your policies equally across your workforce and be careful when it comes to protected expression. You don't want the EEOC or NLRB to come knocking.

I agree FB is for family, friends, etc. and Linkedin is more of a site for your type of work related issues or conversations. Regarding Company regulations I woud prefer my team to keep it brief with no or minor details.

I think the basic elements involved here are: (1) your LinkedIn site is YOUR LI site; (2) if employers push employees to use personal sites for employers' benefit - I would expect many employees are then justified using it to degrade the employer when the relationship ends and the employer would be out of line seeking injunction (quid pro quo) and (3) good marketers don't want to 'market' or 'advertise' in an uncontrolled medium (a site with no content control and no professional decorum). Employers simply need to get their site right and offer employees links and access to the company's marketing standards, publicity releases and suggested advertising copy. From time-to-time I would visit LI sites of employees. If the employer is cast in a negative light, I would not even address it with the employee, and I would try not to let it impair my review/opinion of the employee - but I might fail at that.

LI profile content is definitely private and employee should have the right to disclose private information as he / she may deem suitable. However, when another entity is mentioned in that profile, which may be current or previous employee, then this information cannot be regarded as employee's own private property. In order to control the dissemination of such information company HR policy should have proper clauses guiding employees what to mention and what not to mention and in which format.

Short Answer NONE!!