Retail surgery: Should I be worried about employees blogging negatively about my business?

With the rise of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, it has become easy - and for some second nature - to pass comment on their life in general on an hourly basis. For retailers, negative posts left by employees on these sites is a growing problem.

JBP Public Relations director Chris Piggott says: “We’ve had an avalanche of calls from clients in the past few months saying they have spotted negative comments about their businesses, stores and employees on places like Twitter and Facebook.

“This can be extremely detrimental to a business. Firstly, if a store gets a bad reputation it will be difficult for managers in terms of recruitment. Secondly, bad feelings in a store or business can lead to a bad customer experience.”

Piggott says the best way to stop or discourage employees from doing this is to ensure they know such behaviour will not be tolerated.

“Stopping employees from making comments on websites about their employer or manager is very difficult, so retailers need to make it clear this kind of behaviour will have serious consequences,” he says.

“Employees must understand this is damaging to their employer and that it could lead to disciplinary action,” he adds. “To cover working hours, there must be a well-written policy in place that states the hours in which workers can use the internet.”