Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with a manager from a community credit union. His staff included many enthusiastic and energetic young employees. They enjoyed each other’s company at the office and often socialized outside of work. And sometimes their socializing got a little out of hand.

The partying was never too terrible; think “Animal House,” not “A Clockwork Orange.” But it put the manager in an awkward position. The town they all lived in was small, so everyone knew everyone else’s business.

So the manager was left wondering whether he had a right (or even an obligation) to monitor, and sometimes halt, his employees’ off-hours behavior. He also wanted to know if he could do anything to help his employees behave during off-hours like the mature, responsible professionals they were during the workday.

It’s been five years since my conversation with that manager, but his “small town” dilemma couldn’t be more current—because today, thanks to the Internet, the entire plugged-in world is one gossipy little hamlet.

Just look at Facebook. The networking site boasted 150 million users in January and sailed past the 200 million mark in April. There’s the viral video phenomenon on Facebook, YouTube, and elsewhere, transforming momentary indiscretions into enduring global phenomena. And then there’s the wonderful world of blogging; what used to be fodder for a coffee-room rant has magnified into no-holds-barred personal diatribes that can be read by friends, acquaintances, and strangers the world over.

Welcome to the global village!

The morass of all this new connectivity cannot be ignored. Recall the nightmare Domino’s Pizza saw in April, when two dim-witted employees filmed themselves blowing their noses on customers’ food, and then uploading the video to YouTube. By the time the two workers took the offending clip back down—and were fired—Domino’s was already on the front page and the CEO spent several days on damage control.

Domino’s isn’t the only example. There was the grocery-chain CEO who used a pseudonym to post misinformation about a competitor (and to congratulate himself on his fabulous hairdo), and restaurant employees in New Jersey who filed a lawsuit after their manager forced a fellow worker to give him access to a private blog where the workers vented about their company.

No doubt, the Age of Information makes for interesting new territory for the compliance officer. How do you monitor what employees are doing? Who does the investigating? How might their activity affect the corporate brand? What can the company do about it? How do you balance employees’ right to privacy with the company’s interests? What is it appropriate to expect in terms of off-hours behavior?

First of all, you don’t want to be Big Brother—and you would probably be unsuccessful if you tried. The Web is too dynamic to have total control over, or even awareness of, everything your employees do online. More importantly, you shouldn’t be policing the private lives of employees. Don’t base your decisions about all employees based on the potential for harm by the very lowest common denominator.

It is reasonable and fair to use some basic tools, such as “search spiders,” to see what’s being said about your company. But the intent should be to know what’s going on in the Net as it relates to your company—not to keep tabs on the private lives and thoughts of those who work with you. Be reasonable, presume that employees will be reasonable as well; deal with aberrant behavior as such.

Make sure that your Internet policy is consistent with your company’s values and your line of work, in addition to being relevant to the evolving challenges and complexity of today’s global village.

You probably already have Internet usage policies in place at your office. Technology has changed rapidly, so now’s a good time to revisit those policies to make sure that they are current. Make sure that your Internet policy is consistent with your company’s values and your line of work, in addition to being relevant to the evolving challenges and complexity of today’s global village. Address how certain behaviors might affect your company and its brand, other employees, customers, and other stakeholders including shareholders.

Whenever a decision or action has the potential to affect others, it involves ethics. Take the time to consider the ethical dimension of Internet behavior, and encourage employees to do the same. Certainly, there are people who don’t care about the harm they may do to others, but they are the exception rather than the rule. More bad choices are made out of thoughtlessness than malice—and this is particularly true of Web behavior. It seems too anonymous. It’s so easy to dissociate actions from consequences, and to think that poor choices made online are victimless crimes.

Have clear standards and communicate your expectations to employees. Take the time to think through and articulate your standards for online behavior. Then, clearly and plainly explain to employees which parts of their out-of-work behavior fall within the parameters of their obligations as an employee of your company. This realm includes obvious problems (shooting a video in their uniform or at their workplace) as well as issues that might be subtler, such as discussing a confidential client without using the name but including other identifiable details.

Recognize that the same standard may not be appropriate for all employees. The higher you go up the food chain, the less private your personal time becomes. Encourage employees, especially those who are new to management, to consider how their outside endeavors affect the company as a whole.

Care enough to make it a training and supervisory priority. Consider the amount of harm that a single viral video can do to your company. Rather than dealing with the problem after the fact, invest in preventive education. Teach employees to think about how their online behaviors will affect others, including your company. Encourage supervisors to have conversations with their reports about what you do and don’t consider appropriate.

As a company, model the high ethical standards in online behavior that you want your employees to live by. Be transparent and above-board, and make sure that all areas of your company adhere to those principles. Avoid questionable behaviors, such as paid online “reviews” and spying on competitors; you wouldn’t dumpster-dive at their plant, so don’t allow deceptive posts in message boards or the like.

Finally, if employees do step over the line, enforce the consequences that you’ve communicated. Document what action you’ve taken. And, as candidly as is appropriate, use cases as jumping off points for discussion and education.

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