Air New Zealand was heaped with praise last year for their innovative in-flight safety videos featuring All Blacks and naked staff with painted on uniforms , a move that was copied by Qantas adopting celebrity John Travolta for their safety videos, and promptly one-upped with this latest version from Air New Zealand featuring celebrity fitness guru Richard Simmons.
What can your Facebook policy learn from these corny videos?
The cleverness of the videos is that they start from the assumption that we all do the same thing; we sit down for our flight and ignore any of the safety instructions. Why? Because we’ve seen it over and over again and we’re sure that it won’t ever be a problem. The video, by communicating the message in a totally new way, engages our attention and we happily learn or remember a few things along the way about staying safe during our journey.
Given that the consequences of not following the safety instructions could result in a fine at best and at worst, death or injury, it seems strange we wouldn’t just protect ourself by listening to a safety video in any format.
But, we’re human and the truth is that sometimes we forget to do things the right way, we forget or are unaware of the consequences of getting it wrong.
The recent scandal involving a number of police facing investigation for inappropriate conduct on Facebook easily leads to a conclusion that in their position, they should’ve known better.
Yes, they should have, but if organisations really want to protect themselves they need to take it upon themselves to make sure their staff really understand the implications of their social media usage and are regularly reminded to play it safe. We are after all, only human.
Facebook is particularly easy to encounter problems;
- Many people add ‘friends’ over time quickly losing track of colleagues, former colleagues or random acquaintances who can see their updates
- Facebook privacy settings, while improving, are difficult and fiddly to tweak
- We feel more personal in Facebook easily forgetting any need to toe a company line
While some Social Media policies out there vary from the vague to the completely absent, even the most robust Social Media policy probably isn’t worth the paper it’s written on unless it does the follow things:
- Clearly defines how issues like misconduct or confidentiality specifically could crop up in the Social Media environment e.g. just adding the words ‘Facebook‘ and ‘Social Media‘ into the odd employee contract clause won’t cut it
- Is easy to read and understand (and doesn’t assume knowledge)
- Uses practical and real-life examples relevant to the industry you’re in
- Regularly communicate to, and where necessary update, employees as media and consumer usage evolves
You might as well throw your Facebook policy away if it never makes it from Policy into Practice.
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