Social media clause for an employment contract

Sample clause

Written for casual employment agreement for a barista at Harbour Street Cafe, a fictional cafe in Wollongong NSW.

Social Media. (a) The Employee must not post, on any platform or account, information that is confidential to the Employer, its customers or its suppliers, including takings, rosters, supplier prices and customer details. (b) The Employee must not post photographs or video of customers, or of other staff at work, without their consent. (c) The Employee must not identify themselves as speaking for the Employer, or post on the Employer's accounts, unless authorised in writing by the Manager. (d) The Employee must not post material about the Employer, a customer or a colleague that is harassing, discriminatory, threatening or that a reasonable person would see as seriously damaging to the Employer's business. (e) The Employer's Social Media Policy, as changed from time to time, applies. It does not form part of this agreement, but a serious or repeated breach of it may lead to disciplinary action.

Sample wording, not legal advice.

Variants

What to negotiate

• Keep the policy out of the contract

  Making the social media policy part of the contract binds the employer to it too, and makes every update a contract change. The usual approach, as in the sample, is a short contractual duty plus a policy that applies but does not form part of the agreement, which keeps the employer free to update it.

• Out of hours posts need a connection

  An employer's control over what employees post in their own time is limited. Tribunals have accepted discipline for out of hours conduct where it has a sufficient connection with the employment, such as abusing a colleague or revealing confidential information, but not for ordinary personal opinions unrelated to work. Write the clause around those connections.

• Proportionate consequences

  Dismissal for a single post can be harsh, unjust or unreasonable, particularly where the employee did not know the rules. A clause that refers to a policy, training on it, and a disciplinary process with warnings for lesser breaches gives the employer a fair process if it later needs to act.

The risk of leaving it out

Without a social media clause or policy, an employer that disciplines or dismisses an employee over a post may struggle to show the employee knew the standard expected, which weakens its position in an unfair dismissal claim. It also leaves no clear rule on client photos and confidential information, which are the posts that cause the most harm.

Social media and unfair dismissal

Under Part 3-2 of the Fair Work Act 2009, an eligible employee can claim a dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable. The Fair Work Commission considers whether there was a valid reason related to conduct, whether the employee was told of it and had a chance to respond, and other relevant matters. Commission decisions have found dismissals over social media posts unfair where there was no policy, or the response was out of proportion, and fair where posts harassed colleagues or harmed the business. Law checked on 21 October 2026. This page explains how the law works and is not legal advice.

Privacy and client images

Photographs and details of customers, patients or children posted by staff can breach privacy obligations the business owes and professional codes in health, education and care. The work experience example forbids sharing client names or photos from a vet clinic, including on social media, and says the clinic will not photograph the student without a parent's written consent. The same rule belongs in any role with client contact.

Contract term and policy together

The casual employment example lists the cafe's policies, including social media, as applying from time to time without forming part of the agreement, and the council social media policy example shows what a full policy covers: official accounts, personal accounts, approvals and breaches. A short contract term plus a policy is easier to maintain than a long clause that tries to cover every platform.

Where the clause sits in a generated document

Employment contracts, work experience and volunteer agreements, and social media policies carry these terms. When asking the AI document generator for a contract, list the confidential items, the photo rule, who may post for the business and the policy it should refer to.

Documents that carry this clause

Casual employment agreementA retail assistant is paid $34.00 an hour, which is a base of $27.20 plus a twenty five per cent loading. The agreement shows how every other rate is built from that base, and what the loading is paid instead of.Social media policy template that separates personal and official accountsA social media policy has to tell staff two different things: how the organisation's official accounts are run, and what they can and cannot say about work on their own accounts. This four page policy for a council with 400 staff puts the two side by side in a table, then sets out what not to post, a disclosure rule and how breaches are handled.Work experience agreement template for a Year 10 student placementA work experience agreement template sets out when and where a school student will be, who is responsible for them, what they may and may not do, and who covers them if they are hurt. In Victoria it sits alongside the Department of Education arrangement form, and for a student under 18 a parent signs as well.

Questions people ask