Employers who encourage their staff to conduct business in virtual worlds such as Second Life are being advised that a dress code policy should be enforced before employees are let loose in cyberspace.

According to analysts at Gartner, 70% of companies will have set behaviour and dress code guidelines within the next five years.

The concept isn’t surprising, as you’d expect any employee representing a company to be issued with ground rules. However, the introduction of virtual world working brings with it a new set of challenges for managers, many of whom have already shown a lack of understanding and slowness to react to trends such as blogging and acceptable Internet use.

Having said that, if companies are official sanctioning their workers to form business relationships online, they are presumably forward thinking companies with an understanding of the risks and potential pitfalls. [Read more…]