Despite a flood of recommendations to create one, there are still a lot of companies without policies that let employees know their obligations when engaging in social media. One survey from last August found that one in three lacked policies. A Deloitte survey from just a few months earlier pegged the number at half. And just this month, according to a study from Cisco Systems, only one in 5 companies have formal policies.

It doesn’t matter whose numbers are most accurate. Any way you look at it, a lot of companies are without policies.

The reasons to have a policy are just common sense. Employees shouldn’t be surprised when they find themselves in trouble for saying something that they shouldn’t have said, so it just makes sense to lay it out for them. Of course, you can leave it to a lawyer to be more explicit in explaining the rationale. That’s what Eric B. Meyer, Associate in the Labor and Employment Group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, did in an April 2009 Mashable post by HR consultant Sharlyn Lauby:

1. Employers need to be upfront with employees that they have no right to privacy with respect to social networking. ???Employers reserve the right to monitor employee use of social media regardless of location (i.e. at work on a company computer or on personal time with a home computer).???
   
   
2. Employees ???should be made aware that company policies on anti-harassment, ethics and company loyalty extend to all forms of communication (including social media) both inside and outside the workplace.??? People need to remember that bashing your organization/boss/co-workers online can lead to consequences at work.

So I was surprised—stunned is more like it—to see Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt post an item to his blog recently that argued against social media policies.

I was stunned because Hyatt got a lot of attention in the early days of social media when he published a proposed set of employee guidelines he had drafted for Thomas Nelson, seeking comment from the blogosphere. He later posted his final policy, the one he implemented for employees.

In his post, Hyatt explains that he didn’t originally want the policy. It was a concession to attorneys who were nervous about the idea of employees participating in the blogosphere. After six years, Hyatt says he’s never had a single problem arise from his employees blogging. “I don???t think this had anything to do with the guidelines,” he writes. “I believe we would have had the exact same result without the guidelines.” Hyatt declares the outcry for companies to develop policies “a solution in search of a problem.”

Hyatt outlines five reasons you don’t need a social media policy:

• Your people can be trusted.
• Social media are just one more way to communicate.
• More rules only make your company more bureaucratic.
• Formal policies only discourage people from participating.
• You probably already have policies that govern inappropriate behavior.

I like what Michael’s saying. It was no surprise to read comments to the post in which people expressed how much they’d like to work in a company like Hyatt’s. And I’m sympathetic to all the comments that enthusiastically supported Hyatt’s point of view.

But I still think policies are required. You only have to look at the legion of tales of people losing their jobs over something they posted to know that it doesn’t hurt to your workers that they do have responsibilities when talking about the company online. Nearly 10% of companies have fired someone for misusing social media, according to a study from Proofpoint. You have to wonder how many of those employees didn’t know they were violating any rules because the company didn’t tell them what the rules were.

I have no problem calling them guidelines. I remember working on an intranet project back in 1994 when the developer we hired, Matisse Enzer, said he preferred “Tools, not rules.” Guidelines help people know what’s expected of them without the oppressive weight of rules.

I agree with Hyatt that most companies already have policies that govern inappropriate behavior. But most employees at home on Facebook aren’t thinking about the rules that they equate with the workplace. Even if your policy (or guideline) just says, “All company policies that address inapporpriate behavior apply to your conduct online.”

I don’t believe having policies indicates distrust of employees. If you trust employees to do the right thing, sometimes it’s important to let them know how the organization defines “the right thing.” There’s a difference between trust employees and positioning them to fail by not providing adequate information. (Remember the whole “empowerment” business mantra?)

Hot on the heels of Hyatt’s post (which is definitely worth reading, along with the comments) comes an article from Inc. magazine, “Do you need a social media policy? According to the article:

When it comes to your social media policies, every company is going to differ on what type of engagement is acceptable…Any company that has a social media presence these days can benefit from having some type of policy in place, but…it need only include what is necessary to protect the company legally and financially.

The fact that every company will differ on what’s accepteable is the perfect reason to articulate what that is. Call it a policy. Call it a guideline. Call it effective communication about social media with employees.

Whatever you call it, don’t leave employees wondering. That could be more of a discouragement than letting them know what’s what.