Recently, a human resources attorney wrote a column about this exact issue.

She concludes that employees should have no expectations of privacy if they post information in a public forum. So if their Facebook pages or Twitter feeds are publicly available, you can use that information to investigate an employee or justify a termination.

On the other hand, if an employee protects their online information from public view, you cannot use it to justify employment decisions.

Of course, if an employee explicitly grants you or your company permission (by adding you as a friend or allowing you to follow them on Twitter), then all info is fair game.

According to Global Payments: Maximizing Cash Flow with Electronic Payments and Process Automation — a recent report by the Aberdeen Group — Accounts Payable can reduce the cost of making payments up to 45% by moving away from paper.

Specifically, the report highlighted the average cost associated with the following payment methods:

• producing a paper check ($7.15)
• an Automatic Clearing House (ACH) payment ($4.72), and
• a corporate credit card payment ($3.96).

When it comes to moving to e-payments, one of the biggest challenges for A/P departments is getting their vendors to buy-in. But an increasing number are firms are putting pressure on hesistant vendors.

In fact, 61% of the companies in the Aberdeen report are more likely to require key vendors to accept electronic payments as a condition of doing business.

Another key finding from the Aberdeen Group: The use of paper checks declined at over half of the U.S. companies in the report.

Readers, has your A/P department made the switch to electronic payments? Let us know how it went in the Comments Section.

Why? If your employees are like most, then they’ve chosen passwords that are easily hacked.

A recent analysis of 32 million passwords by Imperva highlighted the 10 most popular passwords, which should be avoided like the plague:

1. 123456 (290,731 users)
2. 12345 (79,078 users)
3. 123456789 (76,790 users)
4. Password (61,958 users)
5. Iloveyou (51,622 users)
6. Princess (35,231 users)
7. Rockyou (22,588 users)
8. 1234567 (21,726 users)
9. 12345678 (29,533 users)
10. abc123 (17,542 users).

It may be good idea to send out an e-mail to Finance telling workers not to use any of the above choices when they have create a secure log-in.

For a strong password, experts suggest an alpha-numeric combination that is greater than six characters. Also, passwords should be changed every 30 days.

The lawsuit in question involves Utah resident Lauren Rosenberg. Ms. Rosenberg used Google Maps on her Blackberry to get walking directions.

Problem: Part of the directions put Ms. Rosenberg right on U.S. Route 224 — a major highway without any sidewalks.

I think we all know what happened next. Completely unprepared for anything as daunting as a road without a sidewalk, Ms.  Rosenberg was struck by a car.

Of course, Ms. Rosenberg blames Google for entire incident. So now she’s suing the company for over $100,000 for its “careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions,” which ultimately led to her being “stricken by a motor vehicle.”

Even though Google maps offers warnings like the ones seen here, devices like Blackberrys don’t always have enough room on the screen to display these warnings.

In such cases, Google maps users are expected to use a modicum of common sense which, as this case demonstrates, is a recipe for disaster.

We’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

It’s not pretty. If an outsourcing firm goes bankrupt, the business that hired it could end up in a bind.

What’s worse, it happens more than most companies think.

According to The Gartner Group, a tech research company, one-fourth (25%) of IT outsourcing companies will go out of business within the next three years.

If you do outsource, here are three ways to avoid being caught off guard by a troubled provider:

1. Do your research. Make sure your company does adequate research on all potential providers before signing any outsourcing contracts.
2. Look for warning signs. Keep an eye on the provider for red flags — loss of “marquee clients,” lack of new business, poor capitalization, etc.
3. Have an exit strategy prepared. If you spot any problem signs, be sure your company is ready to bail out at the drop of a hat.

“All in the name of cost-control” takes on new meaning, thanks to a recent ruling from the Supreme Court. It comes with cautions, though.

Last week the highest court in the land came down on the side of employers working to protect their bottom lines. And it all centered on those mobile tech devices you’d swear were surgically attached to employees’ hands.

Here are the specifics of this case and what it means for companies of all sizes and in all industries:

The facts

It’s a common scenario now: The employer in this case equipped some of its employees with pagers to stay in contact with co-workers. Folks could text on those pagers. Employees were given a character allowance for text messaging under the company telecom plan. Anything exceeding that number, and the company was charged overage fees.

As the employer here, a municipality, started noticing a growing number of overage fees it understandably questioned whether employees were using the devices for more than just business.

To find out – and get costs back in line – it requested and read transcripts of the employee text messages. Its suspicions were right. The company found many personal (and highly explicit) text messages had been sent from the pagers.

The employees sued their employer, claiming their employers violated their Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

The verdict

After several rounds in lower courts, the case finally made it to the highest court in the land for a definitive answer. The ruling? Square on the side of employers.

The reason: Because the employer reasonably suspected that its people were breaking the rules and using their pagers for non-business activities, it was justified in requesting and reading those text message transcripts.

The implications

True, this ruling is great news for cost-conscious companies everywhere. But the high court made it clear this was a very narrow ruling, which means there are two major cautions:

1. Have a clearly crafted and communicated policy. Your company needs to spell out what employees can and can’t do, on and off the clock, with company property. That includes cell phones, laptops, etc. The employer came out on top in this case because it acted based on the fact it suspected the rules were being broken. If the rules aren’t well defined, you could still wind up in legal trouble.
2. Reel supervisors in. This ruling validates that companies can take steps to keep their costs down. But you don’t want supervisors thinking they’ve just been handed carte blanche to invade staffers’ privacy all in the name of controlling expenses. Overzealous managers (especially ones with compensation dollars tied to holding budgets down) could try to take this new development too far.

Cite: City of Ontario, California, et al. v. Quon et al.,U.S. Supreme Court, No. 08-1332, 6/17/10.

Here are three tried-and-true best practices for managing telecommuting:

1. Create an understood (and agreed upon) schedule. It’s not feasible to expect your off-siters to be in front the computer every second of every day. When you come up with the schedule, account for breaks, phones calls, etc. You may also have to revise a schedule after it’s made — if issues come up.
2. Give them clear objectives. For telecommuting to work, managers must give off-site staffers clear, measurable objectives. Managers should also have several ways to measure these objectives.
3. Set reasonable expectations. Without the ability to actually see what off-site workers are up to, some managers make the mistakes of expecting too much. Hold telecommuters up the same standards as all workers. Clarify what they need to do and by when — and give them all of the necessary tools, equipment and training to do it.

One way to breathe new life into any presentation: add new technology to the equation.

Here are three proven tips from communications coach Carmine Gallo:

1. Encourage ’em to text

When it comes to the Q&A portion of a presentation, shy staffers will often keep quiet – even if they do have a burning question.

To remedy this, include a slide with your cell phone number at the start of the presentation and tell employees they can also text you their questions during the Q&A. This will help get workers who don’t like speaking in public to participate.

2. Utilize video options

When you really want to drive home a point, don’t just put it on a basic slide – put in some video. The switch from static text to moving images is a proven way to re-energize your audience – especially if you just presented a lot of detailed info.

Caution: Even the best technology won’t help if the presentation content isn’t strong.

Readers, what do you do to make presentations more effective?

Research from Javelin Strategy & Research’s Card Issuer’s Safety Scorecard found that that identity theft has dropped by more than half recently.

In the past, fraudsters relied on physical address changes to take over accounts. But thanks to the Red Flag rules, businesses are now required to alert customers whenever they get a change of address request. As a result, this method of fraud has gone way down.

The Javelin Strategy & Research report did warn companies to be extra vigilant for new ways hackers are looking to take over customers’ accounts.

To safeguard your customers from identity fraud, here are two things you can do:

1. Ask your IT department to set up alerts to let customers know about suspicious account activity, and
2. Offer basic tips on how customers can safeguard themselves from fraud.

Readers, how does your company keep customers’ confidential info safe from hackers? Let us know in the Comments section.

More employers are getting hit with lawsuits because of employee’s use company-issued equipment (cell phones,  Blackberrys, iPhones, etc.). And legal experts only expect the trend to increase — with larger settlements and fines resulting.

Here’s one example of how bad it can get: A company ended up paying $5.2 million to a driver who lost an arm as a result of a car accident. The at-fault party: an employee for the company who had been talking on her work cell-phone at the time of the accident.

One way to protect your company: Huddle with HR and create a written policy that forbids workers from using portable devices while driving. Include the disciplinary actions that employees will face for violating the policy — and have them sign off on it.