On Tuesday, I wrote about the impact of a poor HR policy regarding social media tools like Facebook. Yesterday, Michael Krigsman gave just the example to illustrate my point: Whole Foods has revised its Code of Business Conduct to ban executives from posting to any non- company sponsored forum, blog, message board, or chat room. This is downright silly. Whole Foods, if your employees aren’t already laughing at your CEO for posting those negative messages about Wild Oats, they’re really going to laugh at your HR department for trying to control what other executives do as a result. Your HR department is taking a fear-based approach that has three negative outcomes:

1. Executives who might make valuable contributions to blogs and forums that would reflect positively on Whole Foods are now banned from doing so.
2. Other employees at Whole Foods will take this is as an indication that they shouldn’t contribute to blogs and forums either, lest they get in trouble for something that HR doesn’t approve of.
3. People outside Whole Foods will think that the company doesn’t hire well at all levels if you have to ban your people from talking to the public. Your employees should be your ambassadors.

Just because your CEO did something foolish, you shouldn’t punish all executives as a result. Instead, trust them. So here’s my challenge to any Whole Foods executive: leave a comment on this post that demonstrates to your HR department the value of having executives engage in a conversation and represent Whole Foods positively. You need the good PR, so here it is. If no one posts, then it demonstrates exactly the negative outcomes I warned would happen.