Madireddi

Brinda Madireddi

Professor Lizbette

Rhet 1302

29 November, 2017

The Harsh Realities of Social Media in the Workplace

Although social media is relatively new, it has spread throughout the world fairly

quickly. In the modern world, most people have some form of social media. This lets people

communicate easier and more effectively with those living in areas where this wouldn’t be

possible. Social media can be an informal or formal way of communicating and sharing with

multiple people. This allows people, companies, celebrities, and more a platform to express

whatever they want, whether good or bad. Though there are many positives of social media,

there are even more cons. Even though social media has become an effective way to brand and

promote, specifically companies, it can also hurt an employee’s career when used incorrectly,

especially during recruitment. Through dubious discussions, risqué pictures, or even mentioning

their workplace, employees can get in serious trouble or even fired. These harsh consequences

result in a lot of controversy dealing with what an employer can and cannot do on their private

media accounts. Social Media is a platform used throughout the world in almost every single

industry. Additionally, it can spread to various target markets within seconds of posting.

Although social media can be used to network and increase brand awareness, a company’s image

can be negatively impacted through an employee’s misuse of social media and the portrayal of

their place of work. Despite the negative impact, there are ways this can be fixed, or even

prevented.
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Though there are many different social media platforms that affect an employer’s

workplace, Facebook is arguably the most influential. Over one billion people have a Facebook

account, and many of them have their employer tied to their personal account. This can create

tension and controversy within the workplace if conflict were to arise. According to Career

Builder author, Rachel Zupek, there have been too many circumstances where a user posts a

discussion about his potential, or existing place of work, and has gotten reprimanded by a

manager or supervisor because of that controversial post. If the account is a public profile,

anyone in the world can view the post or discussion and tarnish the brands name. Not only could

it ruin brand image, but it can also get one in trouble for lying in the workplace. For example,

Kevin Colvin, a young intern who lied about a family emergency, was dismissed after the truth

was found out through the intern’s Facebook page. He had posted a few pictures of himself at the

beach, proving he had no family emergency that required him to take a few days off from work.

Similarly, Kimberly Swann who complained about her boring work days on Facebook and was

fired promptly after the post was written. These examples prove that the relationship between

social media and the workplace can be detrimental to their employment.

Although social media is a relatively new invention, there have been many studies on

how it affects a person’s life, especially their work life. In “Social Media in the Workplace,”

statistics and hard facts are used to showcase the relationship between an employee and social

media. Of the three thousand students interviewed, approximately forty percent of them used

social media, and of those individuals, around seventy-three percent used Facebook in particular

(Appignani, et. All). Although these percentages do not show the negative images of the people

who use Facebook for work, it demonstrates the amount of people who do use this platform.

Even though this survey was taken on a college campus, this represents the large demographic of
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the young work force. Many of them will continue to go on and be a part of the labor force.

Since so many of them have a public social media account, employers need to start taking into

account the influence they have on potential employees.

Social Media is a source of communication that can be accessed anywhere, at any time.

The communication on social media platforms tend to be very informal, but can become formal

depending on the site and user. Not just words, but ideas and information can be shared on these

platforms to ignite and inform the public. These four ways of communicating online that can be

detrimental to the culture and lifestyle of the company, the first being metavoicing. Metavoicing

is characterized by the act of “reacting online to other’s presence, profiles, content and

activities,” (Azad, et. All). If an employee reacts to a risky or controversial post, the company’s

brand image can be negatively impacted. Employees who have noted they are working for a

particular company have an obligation to keep that company in good name while they are still

employed there. Most companies require the employees to sign a contract when they are hired

that disallows the employee from speaking about the company negatively, whether it be online,

on in person. The other ways of communicating online are: triggered attending, staying

uninvolved until the topic changes, Network-Informed Associating, which is basically

networking with colleagues, and Generative Role-Taking, which is taking on a societal role to

“maintain productive dialogue” between participants (Azad, et. All). Though all three are

included when dealing with social media, metavoicing is the most apparent in today’s usage.

Simply by liking or sharing a post, an employee can cause problems for their employer.

According to “The History of Social Media and its Impact on Business”, the fastest way to

promote growth in a business is through “social media and networking,” (Edosomwan, et. All).

Social Media has been the source of expansion and growth in many industries, especially in
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promotion and company image. This lets people from all over the world learn about what the

company has to offer and why it is the best in the industry. If an employee starts to post about the

negative aspects of the company, anyone from around the world can view and join in. This can

potentially tarnish the brands reputation and their legitimacy in their industry.

Social Media policies are created to benefit the company and the employee. Employers

create these policies so that employees are able to understand the extent of what they can post on

their personalized accounts. There are two ways to create the best experience for their

employees. First, they should, “adopt written policies” concerning the do’s and don’ts of social

media (Lanham, 5). This means they should create an actual guideline of what employees are

able to do. By doing this, employers are able to structure the usage, and employees can see

beforehand on what they are allowed to do. A few examples of these rules are the following: “to

what extent employees are allowed to befriend business relations, whether [or not to] …create

separate accounts for business…and personal contacts,” (Russel and Stutz). The company must

make these rules to fit the company and its culture. Each company is different, so one must make

its own rules that will fit. The second way is to train supervisors to handle issues that may arise

(Lanham). Although there are written rules, it can sometimes be misconstrued in a way that lets

the employee off easily. This can be prevented through effective training of managers so they

can prevent any issues from arising or cutting them off when they do occur.

The use of social media in the workplace has been a controversial topic since its creation.

There have been many instances where social media has harmed an employee’s work life, or

even terminated it, which causes controversy. However, there are different ways to fix or create a

new environment where social media and the workplace can coexist peacefully. With new
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technology being brought to the world every day, social media is here to stay and will continue

to impact the workplace until necessary actions are taken.

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Works Cited

Appignani, Timothy et. All. “Social Media in the Workplace.” Selected Papers of Internet

ajdlkjfResearch 16, 2015, file:///Users/brindamadireddi/Downloads/1032-959-1-SM.pdf.

jfjaskjAccessed 15 Nov 2017

Lanham, John. “Social Media and the Workplace”.Employment Law Commentary, vol 22, no 1,

jkjad a2010, https://media2.mofo.com/documents/100131elc_vol22no1.pdf Accessed 15 Nov

aijfad 2017

Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C. and Azad, B. “The Contradictory Influence of Social

adsdssMedia Affordances on Online Communal Knowledge Sharing.” J Comput-Mediat Comm,

dsjfsdsvol 19, no 1, 2013.

adfddshttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12030/full?wol1URL=/doi/10.1111/jcc4.1

sdfads2030/full&regionCode=US-TX&identityKey=9edf2fde-7bc6-4de1-8ee0-7c76a1c1999b

Russel, Reiner, and Michele Stutz. “ Social Media in the Workplace.” Journal of Internet Law,

ajklsd2014,

aajsdkhttps://www.russell.nl/Uploaded_files/Zelf/Publicaties/socialmediawhatemployersneedtok

jkfjdk now.pdf, Accessed 15 Nov 2017

Zupek, Rachel, “How Social Media Can Hurt your Career”

alsjdkdhttp://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/08/24/cb.job.social.medial.pitfalls/

aksdjlkAccessed 15 Nov 2017