Before You Film At Work, Read This 🎥🏢

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There is a common mistake many young people entering into the corporate world make. I want to address it so you don't receive a termination letter five minutes after receiving a job offer.

It's on the issue of confidentiality.

Many people understand confidentiality to mean not discussing office secrets with outsiders. But it goes far beyond that.

Currently, there is news circulating the internet about a bank employee who filmed “get-ready-with-me" content in her office, because her home wasn't camera-ready at the time. When her employer found out, she was queried. More warnings followed after she reportedly filmed a workday vlog showing a restricted area of the bank. She apologised, deleted the video, and shortly after, was asked to resign.

Her story isn't really about one bad video. It's reveals four mistakes a lot of young professionals make, and they're worth discussing so we can all learn.

Every organisation has a social media policy, whether it's expressly stated or not.

Many organisations operate under strict regulatory guidelines around filming the offices and other restricted spaces. In today's world, even a picture showing the exterior or interior of your home or office, or the people who work there, carries real risk. I'll go deeper into this in another post, but for now, I'd recommend reading your employment contract properly before signing, and where you can, have a lawyer explain those contractual terms and clauses to you.

There's need to keep your personal life away from your professional life

My work girlies, hear me out. You can absolutely still create content without dragging your workplace into it. You can talk about your morning routine, your outfits, your commute, your personal growth, your side hustle, literally anything that isn't your employer's physical space, systems, or work hours. But the moment you mention your work place, or show their logo in your content, it stops being purely "you." It becomes something the brand now has to answer for too, whether they wanted that role or not. Everything you do can either polish their image or dent it.

Filming before work hours or during breaks isn't a defence

If you work somewhere where there are confidentiality obligations, security protocols, or a compliance culture, understand that "before work hours" isn't a defence. It's still their space. It is still their logo. The clock doesn't reset the risk. Remember, film your life or build your brand. Just do it somewhere away from your employer's premises to avoid liability.

Acquire digital literacy

Half of these issues could likely have been avoided with a clearer understanding of what a personal brand actually is. I often say this:

• dancing online isn't building a personal brand.
• dropping hot takes every eke market day isn't building a personal brand.

There are particular ways to present yourself to attract the attention you need for your brand.

I love my corporate girlies and I thought of sharing this with you tonight. I want the best for every single person reading this. I hope you found this valuable. What new thing you learnt from this post?