User talk:Busystudents

Concept #2 – Reducing the Use of External Social Media in the Workplace

Although the National Labor Relations Act protects employees’ rights to post information about their employers and engage in discussions online with their co-workers, the amount of information they can disclose is limited (Westwood, 2018). To be on the safe side, most employers block social media sites on the computers so that employees are not able to access the sites from their desktops or laptops. Employees would have to use their personal devices to access social media while at work. If they are like my employer, there is no WiFi access, making it even more challenging to access social media. One way organizations can reduce the use of social media in the workplace is by using the Equity Theory. The Equity Theory “is a justice theory that deals with relationships and the perceptions of the people in any given relationship, including relationships between employees and the organizations for which they work” (Herlle & Astray-Caneda, 2012, p. 2). It suggests that employees are motivated to perform by fairness. They find a good balance of input to outcomes. In other words, if they feel they are putting more time to social media than they are to work, they are able to adjust to the time spent in the workplace to make it fair for all employees.

Managers need to implement this theory early in the on-boarding process, and determine what fair is. They can control the use of social media at work “during the hiring process, at new hire orientation, employee recognition programs, visual aids in the work place, and ongoing training” (Herlle & Astray-Caneda, 2012, p. 4). An organization’s social media policy should limit employees to allow them to spend thirty minutes a day on social media to network and engage with others. If the employee finds he/she is going past that time, they should request an extension of time to get approval for more time to engage in social activities that can benefit the organization or work environment.

References

Cao, X., Vogel, D., Guo, X., Liu, H., & Gu, J. (2012). Understanding the influence of social media in the workplace: An integration of media synchronicity and social capital theories. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 3938-3947. doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2012.618.