NSFW: You canEMPLOYERS NEED POLICIES TO PROTECT WORKERS

BY ANDY BROWNFIELDabrownfield@bizjournals.com

In March, at a small Blue Ash techcompany, an employee walked intothe president's office with a look thatsomehow managed to merge disgust,anger, confusion and exasperation.

She told her boss that a worker in aneighboring cubicle had spent most ofthe morning on his computer *looking atphoto after photo from the latest SportsIllustrated. You know, the one filled withwomen wearing swimsuits no one couldactually swim in.She was offended for two reasons.

First, because the women on the screenwere "basically nude," which made heruncomfortable. And second, because herco-worker didn't see why it was inappro-priate and told her so. She asked the pres-ident what he was going to do about it.

"It seemed like an easy fix - those pic-tures aren't appropriate at work," said thepresident, who asked not to be named forthis story. But the more I thought aboutit, the more confused I got. Where was

the line? What's OK to look at? And whodecides? Me?"

For all of the freedom the Internet pro-vides to workers in helping them do theirjobs, it also created "NSFW." Not Safe ForWork.

It's not uncommon for employees to befired for looldrig at pornography at work.But pornography isn't the only thirigemployers can consider NSFW. With justabout every employee on social media,employers don't want that activity reflect-ing poorly on the company.

For instance, late last year, Justine Sac-co, conummications director for InterAc-five Corp. - the company that owns web-sites like Match.com, and Virile° - tweetedfrom an airport, "Going to Africa. Hope Idon't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"She was fired after that tweet went viral.

NSFW'is the scarlet letter of the Inter-net and a tag that causes HR people toeither panic or roll their.eyes.

Just what is NSFW? Nudity? Gam-bling? Racism? Insensitivity? Definitionsare as amorphous as the Internet itself.But it's an issue companies should not -

CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER

affordAND THEMSELVES

cannot - ignore, experts say."It would be almost impossible to

list every category of things that shouldbe prohibited," said Michael Glassman,chairman of Dinsmore & Shohl's employ-ee law practice group. .

"I've never really seen ,a policy that hasa laundry list of sites that you can't go`o.It's somewhat infinite."

'Significant liability'Glassman and other experts agreed onthis: It's critical for employers to havea policy. Something in writing that letsworkers know what is and isn't, appropri-ate to show up on workplace computers.

So why is it even important for com-panies to have policies telling employeeswhat's inappropriate on the web?

Stephen Richey, lead attorney withThompson Hines labor and law group,said there are two reasons."From a legal point of view it can cer-

tainly expose the employer to significantliability," he said.

The other?"If s simply a waste of time Rich

The fact that you see something tagged as NSFW andyou go ahead and click on it, that says something inand of itself"JUSTIN FLAMM, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister

said. "People spend a substantial amountof time at work doing things that havenothing to do with work."

Richey said having employees view sex-ual images at work on a computer is akinto hanging photos of centerfolds in theiroffice or cubicle - it creates an uncomfort-able work environment for some employ-ees that a court could interpret as hostile.Its why companies have policies againstthings like sexual harassment"When email became wildly used, the

whole concept of policies with respect toharassment went right out the window,"he said. "Somehow people thought anemail was private and you can delete it,so people didn't understand that it was apermanent record."

That's how the NSFW tag was born.When firms got wise and started imple-menting policies prohibiting employ-ees from looking at things that could beoffensive to fellow workers - even on theirown "private" email - people started flag-ging email subjects with NSFW to warnone another not to open it at work.

So what goes into a good policy?First, disillusion any employees of the

notion that they have any privacy."You don't have a right as an employee

of a private employer to an expectationof privacy when using company servers,"Taft Stettinius & Hollister Partner JustinFlamm said. Flamm works in the firm'sLabor and Employment Group."Some employers don't communicate

that clearly. The employees don't expect