Social media guidelines for IFRC staff

The International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in general and the IFRC in particular are very complicated organism. So please let me explain a few things:

1. This is not your National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society

These are NOT the staff guidelines of the American Red Cross, the British Red Cross, the Turkish Red Crescent etc …

These are the social media guidelines of the “International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies”. The IFRC is an organization where all 186 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are members. It is not a headquarters  but a service provider to the National Societies who can take or leave what the IFRC produces. Some National Societies already have their own social media guidelines.

2. “Neutrality” and “Freedom of Speech”

How far you’ve gone always depends on where you are coming from.

I realize that the parts about “neutrality” and “keeping your manager in the loop” might sound very restrictive to some people, especially those from democratic countries.  But you have to keep two things in mind:

A, Our Code of Conduct says:

“[All staff shall] not publish any work (including writings, photographs, video footage, etc.) that has been produced in connection with, or that is related to, their assignment and functions with the Federation without prior approval of the Secretary General.”

This could easily have been used my management to shut people down who have their own blogs or use social media to talk about work. Instead we went exactly the opposite way and turned this (with the help of stakeholders who could make that decision) into “keep your boss in the loop”. This is a pretty big step.

B, The IFRC demands of its employees restraint when it comes to political controversies:

“[All staff shall] not publicly express any opinions on events connected with political affairs or engage in political activities that could reflect adversely on the impartiality, neutrality or independence of the Federation (…)”

This clause has been part of everyone’s employment contract for many years. Obviously it also has to apply online.

Coming from a country like Germany this initially felt like a pretty big violation of my rights as a citizen. But  for a lot of people in the field, being seen as coming from a neutral and impartial organization can literally be a life saver.  Many of them routinely have to work with very controversial people or even in war zones. How your organization, and the people working for your organization, are perceived might not only influence whether you have access to the vulnerable people you want help but it might also have very serious security implications.

3.Guidelines vs. policies

The role of guidelines within the IFRC is to give advice, not to set rules. Rules can only be set in policies which is why these social media staff guidelines contain no new rules. They merely look at existing policies within the organization (such as the code of conduct) and give guidance on how these should be interpreted in the context of social media. This was done in consultation with human resources, the legal department, the staff association, two directors, an undersecretary general and other stakeholders.

Changing policies on the other hand can be an extremely lengthy process. In some cases you might need approval from all 186 member National Societies and is a  process that can easily take two years. These guidelines on the other hand were completed in less than three months.

Why the social media guidelines matters

For the first time the IFRC is encouraging staff who are not professional communicators to actively and publicly talk about the organization and their work. The guidelines create clarity and reduce the risk of arbitrary repercussions – it’s definitely harder to shut someone up now than it was before.  On the other hand the guidelines also make clear what is unacceptable from an organizational point of view and that you might have to answer for what you write online.

Personally I hope that this document will start discussions within some National Societies about whether a top-down model for communication is still appropriate and I hope that this in turn will lead to the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement becoming more open. I realize that this is a big dream – but I hope that I have planted one of the seeds to make it happen.

Download the Social Media Staff Guidelines of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); 8 pages (PDF)

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Related posts:

1. How the BBC is trying to avoid the gullibility trap

Customizable campaign

Because, even though all National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are part of the IFRC, they do want to have the logo of their National Society on the posters, ebadges etc. Since we are giving them the production files, the American Red Cross can now slap the AmCross logo on top of it and the Turkish Red Crescent can do the same with it’s logo, etc.. If you are thinking “Duh, why hasn’t this happened before?”, then I can only agree with you. But what can I say? It didn’t.

Now we will have to see whether this is something that National Societies will actually use. They are not expecting this kind of material from us, so we will have to see whether this will work immediately, whether it will take some time until they are used to getting these tools from us or whether they will continue to produce their own campaigns. We already have some positive feedback from some Societies, both rich and poor.

The campaign is very simple and includes posters, widgets, ebadges and a YouTube Video. Please share it.

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Emergency Items Catalogue

One of the things I love about my job is that I constantly find out about incredibly useful or smart things that people have come up with. Right now I’m in awe of the the new Emergency Items Catalogue (www.ifrc.org/emergency-items) that was just released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Metric? Imperial? Who cares?

Imagine you show up at a disaster and you’ve brought a few pumps and hoses. What are the odds of you being able to connect you stuff to that of everyone else? If you used the specifications from the Emergency Items Catalogue to purchase your equipment, then the odds are quite high. Because of the size of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement it can set standards.

2,000 items you need in an emergency

Essentially a group of dedicated people with a very high threshold for boredom got together and specified the details of 2,000 items that are commonly used in an emergency. From adhesive tape to scalpels to generators to … hoses. It’s a job I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but for which I have the uttermost respect.

Standardization is you friend

Even if you don’t need to connect your stuff with that of anyone else, standardization is your friend. For one thing you can be sure what the industry standard is. But more importantly you can tell a manufacturer what you want in a way that makes sense to the manufacturer. If for example, instead of saying “I need 500 blankets” you can say “I need 500 blankets that follow these exact technical specifications” you are far more likely to get what you expect.

Google Books and DocStoc

The Emergency Items Catalogue has been available online for years. But in my opinion not enough people know about it or are using it outside the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. To change that, the logistics department has given it’s go-ahead to add the PDF-version to Google Books and Docstoc once they have been finalized (in about two weeks). It’ll be interesting to see what people do with these documents once they are out there.

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