Social Media in the Workplace
Currently, social l media has become easily accessible than ever before. One can access social media at home, school, or workplace. Many employees in most cases sneak to their social media sites to feed something that is not work related during working hours. Therefore, it is significant for organizations to monitor their employees’ use of social media while at work, especially if what they post on the sites are issues related to workplace.
As a HR manager for a Fortune 500 organization addressing the issue of employees using social media in workplace, I am supposed to follow a certain procedure. One thing that is apparent is that if the behavior is not noticed, it can cause numerous problems for the organization since the workforce is the most integral part of a company. Therefore, I would make the employees understand the negative implications of using social media in workplace. For instance, I would discuss with them that social media use reduces productivity (Awolusi, 2012). Sharing information on the platforms while at work undermines the general performance of the employees.
Secondly, I would make the employees understand that use of social media may hurt relationships at workplace through sending hurting messages and this undermines the organization’s cohesiveness (Broughton et al., 2009). Employees also need to understand that using social media while at work can expose organizational private information, willingly or unwillingly when posted to wrong recipients or relaying organizational discreet information like promotions that is not deemed to get outside the company circles.
Firstly, I would communicate to each employee about the problem using email to inform them that it is not prudent to use social media in the work place. Nevertheless, I know that this might not be adequate because the issue has been addressed before. Therefore, I would come up with a plan that would help in managing employees’ use of social media.
The plan would be entailed in a social media policy, which I would discuss with the employees to ensure that the organization manages employees’ use of social media to avoid negative implications. In the dialogue, I would make the employees understand that the social media policy is a guideline in communication that will empower all the information they need to know while using social media. This would help them develop a culture of using the Internet built sites in a responsible manner without harming the organization or any other parties. Under this policy, I would address different issues, for instance, social media objectives, values, guidelines, and the best practices to be employed while using it.
As a HR manager, I would make it clear to the employees on what would be considered appropriate and inappropriate in the use of social media and the procedures of governance that would follow if these rules and regulations are broken. It is also important to note that social media in workplace can take two dimensions: social media personal use and professional organizational social media use. Therefore, in communicating with the employees about the social media policy, I would make it clear about the rules that are related to personal and professional use of social media, considering the elements of proper language and content.
Since the concept of social media in workplace is still new, I will also ensure that the regulations protect the employees and the organization and match their evolving nature. The underlying factor will be to ensure that employees and the organization are free from negative implications associated with irresponsible workplace social media use.
References
Awolusi, F. (2012). The Impacts of Social Networking Sites on Workplace Productivity. Journal of Technology, Management & Applied Engineering,28(1).
Broughton, A., Higgins, T., Hicks, B., & Cox, A. (2009). Workplaces and social networking-The implications for employment relations. Institute for Employment Studies, Brighton.
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