Watch what you write, Wipro tells its Employees – comes out with Employee Blogging Policy!

Indian Corporates are slowly waking up to the hazards of content going online, often damaging enough for the company to sit up and take notice. Last month, Infosys was the first company to come out with official Social Media Policy for Employees of the company.

Now, Wipro has gone ahead and published blogging policy for all their Employees. This, to ensure that any content (Blog post, article or comments) published by Wipro Employees on internet are governed by the strict guidelines.

While some of the pointers are quite standard, few of them can really create problems for Wipro Employees if they are not careful enough.

Here are guidelines given in Wipro blogging policy

BLG.1 General Principles:

BLG.1.1 If there is reasonable doubt on the sensitivity of information that would be posted, you must seek written consent from your managers or such competent authorities (TED/HR/Legal team) prior to such posting.

BLG.1.2 You must think of the consequences of posting any content prior to actually posting on the blog especially, while writing comments related to the Organization / Competition / Customers / Business Partners / General Public.

BLG.1.3 You must not refer or post any Wipro/Customer specific references like email addresses, logo, trademark information, employee numbers, account information, internal project / customer information, financial information, strategic decisions, internal email excerpts, internal security details, internal communications that are limited to circulation within Wipro, Wipro name along with blog site domain name/ blog site URL itself or any copyrighted material which are available to you by virtue of working with Wipro.

BLG.1.4 Any transactions/promotional activities on behalf/in the name of Wipro through blogging sites could be considered as long as it doesn’t violate the Code of business Conduct and Ethics defined in the Organization.

BLG.1.5 You must not use blogging sites (including the posting of information) for any unauthorized purposes targeting Wipro colleagues and other general public in areas, such as but not limited to:

BLG.1.5.1 Use of blogging sites for e-mail spamming or unsolicited messages.

BLG.1.5.2 Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal and privacy rights.

BLG.1.5.3 Transmit, upload or download any material that potentially contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, or any other malicious code.

BLG.1.5.4 Post messages that have racial or sexual slur, political or religious solicitations, or any other message that is in-appropriate and/or has the potential to cause Wipro or its customers and business partners, harm or embarrassment.

BLG.1.6 Wipro reserves the right to monitor online blogs and interfere legally, if necessary, considering any content posting which is not in compliance with the policy.

BLG.1.7 Your breach of information confidentiality, through blogging, is considered as non compliance to this policy. This could necessitate an investigation and appropriate disciplinary action to be taken, up to and including termination from services.

BLG.1.8 This policy applicability is subject to country specific laws/regulations (For e.g.: Employee Workplace related/Privacy laws). Relevant Country Specific laws/regulations shall supersede this policy wherever applicable.

BLG.2 External Blogging*

[Personal Blog sites of Employees, Blog sites available on the Internet, Any Social networking sites]

BLG.2.1 Views expressed by you on blog sites (including URLs or references) must be considered as PERSONAL ONLY and NOT the views of Wipro Limited. If the blog posting clearly identifies that you work for Wipro, you must add a disclaimer such as “The postings on this blog are my own and doesn’t necessarily represent my employer”.

BLG.2.2 You must not cite or post (including any links to other websites) any Wipro or Customer proprietary Confidential Information in blogs since disclosing such information could negatively impact the Organization and may result in regulatory/confidentiality violations.

BLG.2.3 You are SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for the information (commentary) posted by you on blog sites, on the internet.

BLG.2.4 When you choose to go public via blog sites, you shall abide by the ‘Terms of use & Guidelines’ if any, set by the blogging sites.

BLG.2.5 If you happen to post information in any of the media blogs (run by electronic/print news/media websites), you must adhere to the “Media Relations Policy” released by Wipro Marketing team.

BLG.3 Internal Blogging*

[Blog sites promoted by Wipro internally (E.g.: Channel [W]) for the exchange of thoughts and ideas among the Wipro community and to facilitate focused discussion]

BLG.3.1 You must follow the Internal Blogging guidelines as published in the Internal Blog sites, prior to using the same.

BLG.3.2 Internal Blog posting will be controlled by the Moderator from content perspective and Wipro reserves the right to publish the information posted by you in compliance to BLG1.5

BLG.4 External Blog Sites setup by Wipro*

[Blog sites promoted by Wipro on the Internet – E.g.: Campus arena student blog for enabling students to share their opinions and views across diverse topics]

BLG.4.1 Blogging guidelines must be published in the blog site, so that the users of the site could clearly refer and adhere to the same.

BLG.4.2 Publishing of the user views posted must be published on the blog site only after the review by Wipro Moderator.

BLG.4.3 Employees involved in sharing views with external users in the blog site must be aware of this policy and must exercise extreme caution prior to publishing information related to Wipro.

BLG.4.4 Views expressed by employees in these blog sites are generally considered as that of the Organization and hence you must consider liabilities to Wipro while publishing your opinion for the benefit of intended user community.

It is quite clear that we will be seeing a lot more of this from other large Indian companies. Internet Audience is growing, especially on the Social Media platforms, where the discussion can go out of hand. Such steps can ensure that company does not have to face the music due to some Individual’s foolishness.

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