I got my first BMX when I was a kid. A big blue second-hand BMX that was way too big for me, but I didn’t care. Every free moment I was on that bike.
Soon, I knew every cross track in the neighbourhood, and I had my first crash pretty quickly, too.
Took a corner too fast and scraped up both knees, misjudged a jump and went straight over the handlebars.
The kind of crashes that look dramatic but heal in a week when you’re a kid.
Nobody took the bike away. My parents checked if I was okay, told me to watch the track, and let me ride again the next day.
That bike, way too big, slightly dangerous, sparked something that’s still with me decades later. Cycling is how I clear my head, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.
But what would have happened if my parents had locked that BMX in the shed after my first crash? I’d never have known that cycling would become my thing.
That’s the exact tension every company faces when building an employee advocacy program.
Two ways to kill a program
Most companies pick one of two extremes.
Lock the bike in the shed.
Pre-write every post and review every message before sending.
Control over trust.
I get why.
- Legal is nervous, comms is nervous, and everyone’s imagining the worst-case scenario before a single employee has posted anything.
- The result is that no one learns to ride and no one wants to try.
- The “program” becomes a content distribution channel where employees share messages they didn’t write and don’t believe in.
- Your audience can smell that from a mile away.
Hand them the keys and say “good luck.”
No training, no guidelines, no support.
- It usually happens when someone in leadership reads that employee content gets 8x more engagement than brand content.
- They get excited and skip the infrastructure.
- Someone crashes, leadership panics, and the program dies.
Two extremes, same outcome.
Give the bike, show the track
There are only four rules that everyone needs to understand:
- Don’t share confidential information
- Don’t post discriminatory content
- Don’t attack competitors by name
- Don’t speak on behalf of the company on topics you’re not authorised to address
That’s it.
Those are the boundaries of the track.
- Try different content styles and share your perspective on industry trends.
- Talk about what you learned at that conference, or write about a problem you solved.
- Build your voice and make mistakes along the way.
Fall off the bike, we will help you get back on.
Ride into the wall? We remind you why the wall is there.
But we don’t take the bike away.
Boundaries are not control
The companies winning at employee advocacy are the ones with the clearest boundaries.
Tight controls say: “We’ll review every word before you post it.”
Clear boundaries say: “These four things are off-limits. Everything else is yours.”
If you treat people like responsible adults you get responsible adults.
If you treat people like children you get compliance, or silence.
“But what if someone says something wrong?”
The benefits are worth the problems.
The first time an employee in a program I helped build posted something that made even me hold my breath for a second, I understood exactly where that fear comes from.
But if you hire smart people, train them well, and set clear expectations, most will act responsibly.
Not naive optimism, just what I’ve seen play out across dozens of programs.
The honest mistakes are coaching opportunities.
Pull them aside and talk about what happened, and they’ll be more careful and more confident next time.
And if someone intentionally crosses boundaries?
That’s a mentality and performance issue, not a policy problem.
What kills programs is building your entire system around the 2% who might cause problems, while suffocating the 98% who just want to share their expertise.
The one requirement you need
This only works if senior leadership commits.
Not some fake ass board meeting where they sort of get it, but real commitment and trust in employees.
If the CEO won’t defend someone who makes a well-intentioned mistake on LinkedIn, lock the bike in the shed.
Heck, please throw the bike away.
But if leadership is willing to say “we trust our people within clear boundaries” and mean it when things get uncomfortable, that’s when things start to shift.
I can tell you one thing…
The best thing anyone ever did was not take that bike away.