Employee-generated content is becoming an increasingly attractive way for employers seeking to expand their marketing reach. Employees can sometimes serve as credible brand ambassadors, particularly on platforms where authenticity resonates more strongly with audiences than polished corporate messaging. Employees with direct experience of the company’s brand, products, workplace culture, and customers can generate content that may be uniquely credible and influential.
What starts as a branding opportunity can evolve from a marketing strategy into an employment law issue when employers encourage, direct, compensate, promote, or monetize employee-created content.
Employee-creator programs can give rise to a range of legal issues, including wage-and-hour, labor relations, privacy, intellectual property, and equal opportunity. Employers considering such programs should build an appropriate legal framework before implementation.
HR Q&A: Using Employer Branding to Attract and Retain Top Talent
If nonexempt employees create content, respond to content briefs, film videos at work, and so on at the employer’s direction and for the employer’s benefit, that time may be compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and applicable state wage-and-hour laws. States such as California apply a broader “suffer or permit to work” standard that may expand what qualifies as compensable time beyond the FLSA’s requirements.
Because content creation often...
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