Virtually dressing for success

I read an article recently that led me to think we’re taking things a bit too far when it comes to social media and the workplace. I found out from a discussion started by Ashely Seddon on LinkedIn that Gartner are predicting that by 2013 70% of employers will be enforcing avatar dress codes.

Yes, that’s right, a code on how you should dress in your avatar on social networks. A genuine WTF moment. Now, companies encouraging ‘these are not the views of my employer’ disclaimers on blogs is one thing, but telling your employees how they should dress online is quite another. Yet that’s what Gartner is encouraging employers to do. Your social media presence is your own, it is not the ownership of anyone, including your employer. This kind of practice demonstrates some fairly conservative thinking in my opinion.

It is the individual’s responsbility to apply a certain level of self-censorship if their social media profiles are strongly aligned to a certain company. We can certainly all learn a lesson from the Cisco Fatty incident. Companies attempting to enforce an avatar dress code is an attempt to control a medium that is inherently social and organic and it just doesn’t fit. You would hope that any employer or client who sees an avatar where you’re in beach shorts and vest might just realise that that’s you on a weekend and that you’re not going to start playing beachball in the middle of the day when you should be working on their account.

The issue clearly stems from transparency. It’s not hard for a potential client to do a bit of digging online to find the profiles of your employees and get a bit of insight into their behaviour and opinions. This is why there’s evidently a need for employees to act with some level of responsibility online. I appreciate that and realise that it’s not completely a black and white issue. If you’re taking part in a webinar at work for example and using an avatar in that setting, yes, maybe leave the boob tube picture for Facebook.

There have also been issues reported around LinkedIn and members having their photos removed because they’re not ‘professional’ ( a pretty loose term in itself). This discussion thread here centres on one member having her photo removed by LinkedIn because it featured her family. I’ve heard many similiar stories. Yes, it is a professional network, but one would hope that means that members wouldn’t assume  when they met someone in a professional setting they would conduct the meeting in a motorcycle helmet, if that’s what they’re wearing in their avatar. Surely it is the individual’s responsibility (and right) to choose their own profile picture?

The report by Gartner also includes advising employees to create one social media profile for work and one for business. Again, this shows a skewed misunderstanding of social media. It is the people that come to represent a brand now – they’re the best thing about your company. Telling them to create a separate corporate account will likely result in flat content that is only tailored around the brand. Some of my favourite brands are exactly that because I’ve come to know one of their employees through social media, particularly Twitter. I personally couldn’t care less if they were wearing a suit or a mankini. In fact I’d probably prefer the mankini.

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