Major Paper

Employees on Personal Social Media during Work Hours

Denise Johnson

Employees on Personal Social Media during Work Hours

Introduction

The importance of the internet is a widely recognized phenomenon in business all over the globe. Social media is used by organizations, marketing ventures and even by the multinationals. It is usually used by organizations to contact suppliers to maintain an alternative means of communication between the client and the organization. It is estimated that approximately 90 percent of businesses today use them for marketing and communication purposes. However, contrary to the advantages there are many disadvantages of using social media at work. The use and access of social media, for the most part, is limited for the employees. It is pertinent to mention here that the limitations on the use are by no mean synonymous to surveillance. The employers have continuously raised concerns on the use of the social media at workplace on the moral, image, productivity, confidentiality and intellectual property.

Thesis statement

This paper will explore the relationship between the employer and productivity because of the use of social media at the workplace. Due to the excessive presence of employees on social media.

Discussion

Social media is often held responsible for exposing and demanding too much information. There are several issues arising with the use of social media in the workplace. Employees spend too much time using it, it is a distraction from the work they are already doing. Moreover, there can be an intentional and unintentional sharing of confidential information which may breach the company’s privacy CITATION XCa19 \l 1033 (X Cao, 2019). Employers have hence blocked media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to avoid such menaces from taking place.

Around 56 percent of employees use social media for work-related purposes and still find them distracting while 27 percent of the employees use it for to interact with family and friend while being still a workCITATION Soc7 \l 1033 (Social Media Use During Work Hours by Employees, 7). This adds up to a total of a significant amount of loss of time and productivity at work CITATION LYi19 \l 1033 (L Yingjie, 2019). Another issue with the use of social media in the presence and sharing of information on social media. Many organizations terminate or suspend employees for posting comments about the organization. Many employees have shared that the information of an employee presented on social media has lowered their opinion about them at work, creating distinctions and differential behaviors towards them.

Further to the employer's concerns of oversharing the information on social media, there is another emerging problem of cybersecurity, that is compromised regularly, by the use social media CITATION XCa19 \l 1033 (X Cao, 2019). The viruses are sent through spam messages which can easily harm the systems and computer networks at work. Many employees also reuse passwords for the different accounts simultaneously this can also lead to sharing corporate passwords along with personal passwords. And lastly, the presence of the phishing pages of the social media is also threatening to the existent portals or company networks of the organization.

Conclusion

Ideally, employers should implement policies undertaking considerations for the users at work. Nearly in all organization, the use of social media by employers is prohibited by blocking access to social media sites on the equipment. The workplace policies are required by the employers to educate the employees about the negative impact they have on the working environment. The discipline of an organization, to protect the company from breach of confidentiality and to define the tone and take of the organization the use of social media by the employees CITATION HJW11 \l 1033 (HJ Wilson, 2011). This is done by a clear and defined code of conduct, implementation of labor and regulation laws on employees and employers both and establishing guidelines for responding and feedback on the social media.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY HJ Wilson, P. G. (2011). What's Your Social Media Strategy. Harvard Business Review.

L Yingjie, S. D. (2019). Does usage of enterprise social media affect employee turnover? Empirical evidence from Chinese companies. Internet Research .

Social Media Use During Work Hours by Employees. (7, September 2018). Retrieved from Digital information World: https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2018/09/problems-social-media-workplace.html

X Cao, L. Y. (2019). Exploring the influence of excessive social media use at work: A three-dimension usage perspective. International Journal of Information Management.