companies have the right to hold their employees responsible for their individual activities on social media

INTRODUCTION

Social media can be seen as set of technologies that make it easier to have an interactive and productive communication. These technologies are used throughout the world to share ideas and information, and personal photos and videos. This discussion’s aim, however, is to show why companies should hold their employees responsible for individual activities on social media. It is known that image plays a big role when building a company or business, which is why employees should be held responsible for what they upload on their web page in order to protect the image of the company. More of this will be explained in details, in the next paragraphs.

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

According to Bradley (2010) Social media is a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and enabling a potentially massive community of participants to productivity collaborate. Social media technologies, such as social networking, wikis and blogs, enable collaboration on a much grander scale and support tapping the power of collective in ways previously unachievable.

These set of technologies and channel allow people to create their own personal web pages and then connect with their families, friends and colleagues and share their beliefs, values, ideas and photos.

What people upload on the web pages say a lot about who they are and their surroundings, it reveals their personalities and what they believe in. This is why companies have to hold their employees responsible for their personal activities on social media in order to protect their own image.

Levinson (2009) stated that most members of social networks see their pages as personal not professional. And the danger that must be known to every student who has Facebook and twitter account arises: you upload photos while drunk at a party or similarly indisposed. Two years later, you apply for a job somewhere and they check those photos and decide not to hire you. This shows that image plays a big role in companies and it needs to be protected.

WHY COMPANIES HOLD THEIR EMPLOYEES RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

The social media users often write everything they feel of think on their pages and at times what they write might damage the company’s reputation. According to Wilson (2009) there are four principle worries that management has in regard to social networking: data lickage from staff gossiping freely in an open environment, damage to a company’s reputation, scams practiced by “cyber crooks”, and the open access to company information because of outdated passwords.

One other possible use of social networks that is a source of concern to management is the possible damage to the company’s reputation that can be brought about post online. If an employee were to be angry, or have had a bad day, they might be inclined to take their anger out online. This behaviour could damage the company’s reputation. However, employers have the right to hold employees responsible for such conduct if the posting are used to attack the company or harass co-workers (Bresline, 2009).

CONCLUSION

Therefore as discussed in previous paragraphs, employees should be held responsible for what they write on social media in order to protect the company image.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradley, A.J. 2010. A New Definition Of Social Media. Available: http://blogs.gartner.com/anthony_bradley/2010/01/07/a-new-definition-of-social-media/ [accessed 08 March 2013]

Bresline, T. 2009. When social networking enters the workplace. Available: http://ezproxy.neumann.edu.2048 [accessed 08 March 2013]

Levinson, P. 2009. New New Media. United State of America: Pearson Education

Wilson, J. 2009. Social networking: the business case. Engineering&Technology. 10(4): 54-56