Are your managers concerned employees are wasting too much time on Facebook and Twitter? Well, they might have something bigger to worry about.

The popularity of social-networking sites is growing more rapidly than ever. According to the latest figures, about half of adults have a Facebook and/or Myspace account, and the number of Twitter users has grown by 1,300% in the past year.

So odds are a good amount of people in your company are logging on to those sites fairly often. Though some employees probably waste part of the work day checking their accounts, most experts say those situations should be dealt with like any other performance problem — on a case-by-case basis.

The real problem, they warn, is the potential damage to the company’s reputation and its bottom line.

According to a recent Deloitte survey, 74% of workers admitted that social networking sites make it “easier” to hurt an employer’s reputation. That’s a fact several companies already know. For example:

• Last year, British Airways fired a group of employees who used Facebook to call the airline’s passengers “fat and smelly”
• A Pennsylvania high school recently fired a teacher for, among other things, bragging about her alcohol use on Myspace. She sued for freedom of speech, but her case was tossed because she had no right to speech that made the school look bad.

To keep the risk at bay, attorney Keisha-Ann Gray, writing in Human Resource Executive, recommends drafting a policy that:

• Reminds employees they have no expectation of privacy when they use the Internet at work
• Prohibits employees from using the Web in any way that’s contrary to the company’s interests, whether done at work or at home, and
• Establishes that other company policies (anti-harassment, confidentiality, etc.) apply to what employees do online.

What you can’t do

Some states have laws that can limit the reach of a company’s social networking policy. For example, states like New York, Colorado and North Dakota have laws prohibiting companies from firing employees for legal activities they partake in outside of work.

However, most of laws make an exception when the employer is directly affected by the employee’s actions. Check your state laws to be safe before drafting a policy.

The percentage of employees for whom English is a second language continues to rise. How do you communicate with such employees about their benefits?

In particular,  is it a smart business practice to translate your benefits manuals and employee handbooks to the native language of foreign born employees?  An ever-growing number of employers would say yes. But some legal analysts says no.

 Reason: Even small discrepancies in the translation can open the door to lawsuits. It’s a classic case of no good deed going unpunished.

Legalese is hard to translate

Think about how hard it is to verbally explain the legalese of your benefit plan documents to English-speaking employees. While simplifying the terms helps employees understand, it also sacrifices a certain degree of accuracy.

That’s no problem when you’re speaking to an employee, but it gets messy when you expect employees to rely on written documents that may contain inaccuracies.

To make matters worse, many smaller employers opt for amateur translations (usually done by bilingual employees) of their benefits materials.

It’s very easy for the key terminology to become misleading: For instance, it’s very difficult to directly translate the English definitions – and exceptions – for coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Even if you’re bilingual, it’s quite difficult to come up with equivalent terms in a foreign language.  Apart from causing confusion among the employees you’re trying to help, companies unwittingly increase their own legal liability if an employee sues for benefits discrimination.

Professionally written, specialized translations can be cost-prohibitive. You may get more bang for the buck by offering foreign-born employees educational benefits (e.g., English-as-a-second-language classes).

 Reason: Some employees want these benefits more than the other ones described in your manuals.

In addition, when it comes to benefits education, there may be cultural issues at work that go beyond the language barrier. For instance, retirement is a foreign cultural concept to some foreign-born employees. In many countries people work their entire lives. It’s tough to convince these workers to participate in a 401(k) plan.

In a similar vein, some foreign-born employees hold the erroneous belief that the they won’t get back the money in their 401(k) account if they leave the company.

No matter how much you invest in translating your benefits materials, it takes time to build trust and open the lines of communication. In most cases, trust is your ultimate ROI.

Question:
We’ve had some problems arise out of employees’ dating each other. Can’t we simply implement a no-dating policy for employees?

Answer
Most companies have given up on the idea, says business consultant Hunter Lott. Such policies smack of “babysitting,” and that’s the last thing employers want to get  involved in.

Instead of instituting no-dating policies, a lot of companies are going to what are called “relationship” policies. For instance, such a policy might read: “If your relationship with other employees hampers our ability to do business – or your ability to do your job – you’ll be subject to disciplinary action.”

That ties the issue to strictly business matters and doesn’t unnecessarily attempt to monitor employees’ personal lives.

The facts: A frustrated employee told his supervisor and others that he planned to harm a co-worker: “I’m going to stab him in the heart with a screwdriver.” The supervisor took immediate action and fired the employee. The employee sued over the firing and argued that he’d been harassed by the co-worker who was threatened. The employee further argued that he’d complained about the harassment to the supervisor, but nothing was ever done about it.

The employer said:
The company had a zero-tolerance policy about threats of violence, and the supervisor was just following the policy. Yes, the fired employee’s complaints had been mostly ignored, but that was because the employee had filed multiple complaints against other co-workers.

Who won the case?

Answer: The employee.

Why: Two main factors came into play here:
1. The employee hadn’t directly threatened the other employee to his face.
2. The fired employee’s complaints about the co-worker hadn’t been properly addressed.

Plus, the judge concluded that the threatening comment to the supervisor represented nothing more than blowing off a little steam over the frustration of working with a difficult person. Given all those factors, under the circumstances, termination was an overreaction. A lost temper – without physical action – shouldn’t necessarily result in a lost job.

Generally, the best remedy comes before the threat is ever made. Most threats come after a string of related problems. The wise manager responds to and addresses the incidents before they boil over into something worse.

Cite: Thompson v. Aeroquip Inoac Co.

Workplace romance started around the time a couple named Adam and Eve teamed up at a company called Eden Gardens. Pairings like that have been trouble ever since.

Coupling up at work often ends in charges of sexual harassment, hostility or favoritism – and you’re often the one who has to deal with it.

In frustration, you may be tempted to regulate romance in your workplace, but that’s probably a bad idea, and could end up with you and the company getting hit with an invasion-of-privacy complaint by one or more lovebirds.

But that doesn’t mean your hands are tied or that you just have to sit around and wait for the inevitable explosion when a relationship goes bad. Consider, instead, that you can institute a policy that protects you and your employer.

The contract

We’ll call it a “love contract,” although you no doubt can come up with a better name. Essentially, it’s a document signed by employees who are in a relationship at work. In it, they agree:

– their relationship is voluntary and consensual.
– to abide by your anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and workplace-conduct policies.
– to report any perceived harassment to you if it occurs.
– to behave professionally and not to allow the relationship to affect their work.
– to avoid behavior that offends others in the workplace.
– not to engage in favoritism.

A little heavy-handed? Maybe. But not nearly so bad as dealing with a complaint that results from not having a policy.