Social Media and the Work Place

This literature review will be focusing on the interactions of social media and employment. It will discuss the scientific findings of how communications processes in the workplace are affected by social media. In this paper, we will show: (a) There is a negative correlation between organizations that allow their employees social media access and how those employees view their employer; (b) Use of social media in the workplace environment increases employee productivity and performance, and (c) social support can increase the amount workers access social media at work. It will also discuss how social media affects the interactions between workers at organizations, how they feel about their jobs, and how communication processes are affected by social media.

In today’s society, it is crucial for employees to understand the significance in the use of social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. This subject will discuss the primary reasons companies allow the usage of social networking sites in the workplace. It will also explain the positive impact social media usage has in the workplace, such as allowing communication to a broader audience. In addition to the positive usage, this topic will also explore the negative implications usage can cause. Because social media is still relatively new, there are not many laws establishing the proper guidelines for these sites in the workplace. Scholarly articles such as the ‘Workplace impact of social networking” examine the effects of not establishing said policies, an error which results in an unhealthy work environment. Ultimately, employees can positively influence the workplace by using social media if they have the proper guidelines to follow.

A growing hot topic, and cause for concern is the increasing use of social media in the workplace. The landscape for communication has changed, and the line between personal and professional communications has been blurred. How will your employer manage the risks associated with the use of social media and at the same time, gain the benefits that this media form provides? While many employers were initially concerned that employees would use company time and equipment for socializing with friends, they are quickly learning that many social networks can also be used directly for work purposes.

The book, I Know Who You Are and I Know What You Did, by Lori Andrews, states that social network as in Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram, Snapchat, and etc. causes conflict in many aspects of life. In today society, social media seems to reveal more a more negative side of the public. Andrews also states that social media is a distraction to every aspect of life including job careers, education, politics, religion, family, and even death. Invading privacy on social media and violating rights of others can cause disturbing commotion and could lead to prosecution. People should use discretion when posting online, and make sure not to post anything purposely offensive or distasteful and graphic content.

According to a survey report done by the Kelly services with 170,000 people from 30 different countries, 55% of all the participants believe that the use of social media for both the personal and professional posts can cause problems in the workplace (Bennett, 2012). According to a study done by the proof point, many US companies that have hired the employees more than 1000 in number face a real problem with their employees to use social media (Ostrow 2009). Almost 17% of these companies had faced serious disrepute due to the offensive comments on the social media websites (Ostrow 2009). Almost 13% of the US companies have investigated the use of personal text messages that have been found to infringe the company’s law (Ostrow 2009).

Finally, a prospective that hasn’t been touched on is that of the applicants. A study presented at the 27th Annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference in April 2012 shows that employers that use online screening practices may be “unattractive or reduce their attractiveness to job applicants and current employees alike.” The study involved 175 students who applied for a fictitious job they believed to be real and were later informed they were screened. Applicants were “less willing to take a job offer after being screened, perceiving the action to reflect on the organization’s fairness and treatment of employees based on

When I was a manager at a company, I had to administer many policies as they related to my employees. On of these policies was called the Social Media Policy. This policy was meant to protect the company from malicious posts regardless of the intent. To summarize this policy stated that if you in anyway identified yourself as an employee. So if an employee wanted to they could rant about the company or other employees as long as they did not identify the company, list the company as an employer or list the names of employees that are know to work for the company. This policy was created solely because of individually that lacked a filter or the common sense to think about what they were posting.

The purpose of this literary review is to enlighten my viewers of the importance of the ethical idea of companies crossing the lines of business with your personal life, when involving social media accounts. Most of my research has operated from the ATU library using the find it tool. Furthermost, the researched information use was from peer-reviewed research journal. I will discuss includes social media cons in the work environment, if it is ethical to get fired over a post, and laws that protect both parties. Social media includes an assortment of electronic communications—most commonly networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Pinterest, Instagram, and the likes thereof. Social media also covers all forms of blogs, including Twitter (a micro-blog), wikis, online journals, diaries, personal newsletters, and World of Warfare and YouTube also are included under the umbrella term of social media (Lieber 2011).

Prof Warren from Deakin University indicates researchers have found that a lot of business organisations have no policy regarding social media, with very few offering any social media training at all.

Today’s biggest ethical issue in the United States is employers and coworkers posting on social network websites costing themselves and others to lose their job. Due to the misuse of social networking by employees, employers across the country are setting policies regarding employee’s use of social network. Employers are setting policy as to what employees can and cannot say on social websites when they are on or off duty. An example is a news article I came across while browsing the web, article name: Waitress fired after complaining about bad tips on Facebook.

In Zupek’s article, “How social media can hurt your career” she shows how business and corporations are becoming more apparent on social media. With the uprising of more companies being on social media, there is also an increase in monitoring on employees Facebook and twitter pages. Zupek gives direct tweets exchanged between employer and employee and tells the story of Kimberly Swanson. Swanson was an employee at Ivell Marketing and Logistic and worked in Clacton, U.K. and posted a status on Facebook expressing how boring she thought her job was. Days after this post was made, Swanson was called into her manager's office and fired for what she said on Facebook. Zupek concludes the article by giving tips on what not to do on social media and also claims that posts showing negative feelings towards one job should not be posted to be seen by the

The term social media generally refers to communication technologies and interactive platform, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. A further definition is given by Kaplan
and Haenlein
 (2010) who described it as a group of Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content, and emphasizes that any user of social media can be a content creator and can distribute to a network of users. In a broad term, social media is the social interaction via online information and communication technologies

Walk into a library, you have a computer, you are most likely carrying a phone, at home, you most likely have a computer, laptop, tablet, or even all three. This shows that we have social media access at the tip of our fingers, making it so easy to open up the site or app and just type out a phrase or paragraph, letting hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions, of people know what you think. Back then, it was harder to let the nation know what you were thinking, and it took even take months before everyone knew, versus today, where the nation might know by the end of the day, and it’s because of this that companies regulate what their users are posting, attempting at keeping the online world free from threats, hate, harmful words, and more. Rutenberg quotes Jeffrey Goldberg as he says, “At a certain point I’d rather take myself off the platform where speech has become so become so offensive than advocate for the suppression of that speech” (2). Twitter also said that “everyone on Twitter should feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, but behavior that harasses, intimidates or uses fear to silence another person’s voice should have no place on our platform” (Rutenberg 2).

Social media is becoming an increasingly common feature of
the world of work and this trend looks set to continue. This application of communication technology or computer mediated tools have developed rapidly in our lives. Survey such as that conducted by CIPD (2013) have shown that while only a quarter of UK employees use it in their professional lives, this increases to 42% among employees aged 18–24. The innovative operation mode of social media has not only successfully drawn the attention of industry and academia, but has also boosted user growth, especially in the younger generation.

Social media has increasingly been on the rise for over the past 10 years, so has the concern on the effect of it being in the workplace. People are spending more and more time on social media and other communication technology (Walder). Because of this, researchers have begun to wonder what the effect will be in the workplace. The argument of social media in the workplace is on the rise, and will continue to grow as the Internet continues to transform the way people are spending their time (Carlson).