Regardless of political views, there is no place in our society for violence. Last week, the assassination of Charlie Kirk spurred another round of divisive conversations among the left and right. For communications, human resource and legal professionals, an important issue springs from this chaos – how companies handle employees who post commentary on their personal social media accounts.

The killing of Charlie Kirk has resulted in at least thirty people being fired from their jobs for posting content that was deemed inappropriate and callous. Organizations should take this opportunity to reexamine their policies regarding the limits of what employees can and cannot say on their personal social media accounts. It needs to be clearly spelled out in the Employee Handbook, and it needs to be clearly communicated to employees.

It may be old-school, but I believe that people’s words and actions outside of the workplace are still a reflection on the company they work for. For many years, I had a good friend who handled communications for a Fortune 100 company. As good as he was at his job, he posted hateful messages espousing his political views on his personal social media pages, and quite often those posts were reshared far beyond his personal network. He was never disciplined but, in my opinion, he should have been. It tarnished the brand of the company that trusted him to uphold their reputation and credibility, and could easily have created crisis situations that his company would have had to address.

At your next leadership team meeting, carve out time for this discussion. It is fine for everyone to have differing political views and strongly held convictions, but there must be clarity on where lines are drawn and what is acceptable both within the workplace and on personal platforms.

Employees will likely grumble at perceived restrictions on free speech and privacy, but words and actions have consequences. That includes potential ramifications when looking for future jobs. A growing number of organizations are including social media scans as part of background checks, which can thwart employment opportunities before an offer is ever made. What you post today may follow you for years to come.

In an upcoming blog post, I’ll provide some guidance on what employer social media guidebooks can and should specifically say.