Essay on Employee Social Media Use Policy

This paper will recommend an employee social media use policy as follows: the company’s permitted use policy for employee use of computing equipment to access personal social media accounts is to allow limited access to social media of no more than 60 minutes during the work day, with access restrictions to prevent damage to productivity and corporate reputation.

The policy statement is supported by four reasons. Foremost, some employees, such as social media marketing managers and sales representatives, may use social media accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn in the course of their work for tasks such as lead generation and marketing campaigns (Song et al, 2019). Secondly, a blanket ban would lead to illicit access, as proven by Hudson & Roberts (2011), which would be unregulated and potentially cause greater damage (Hudson & Roberts, 2011). Thirdly, a clear social media access policy would allow for clearly communicated restrictions on access, in consultation with employees on fair use guidelines, which would allow for regulated use that would not damage the company’s reputation or employee productivity, while as shown by Shujaat et al (2019), allow for greater employee commitment and satisfaction (Shujaat et al, 2019). Finally, restricted access governed through monitoring would provide effective risk management for the use of social media on corporate equipment, and prevent employees from being overly distracted by social media to the extent that it impacts their productivity negatively, while also preventing any access to explicit or illegal sites that may cause significant damage to the company’s corporate reputation, as shown by Szwajca (2017), which found that unregulated social media use could result in public relations damage (Szwajca, 2017).

In terms of corporate social media access permissions and restrictions policy, the policy will be outlined as follows. Employees will be allowed limited access to social media on their corporate computing equipment of no more than 60 minutes during the work day. Employees will be strictly forbidden from posting financial, confidential or proprietary information about the company on social media, and will be reminded to communicate respectfully about the company, its stakeholders, competitors and customers (Jacobson & Tufts, 2013). Employees should also take personal responsibility for their content posted on social media, and should use privacy settings to avoid unnecessary disclosure. Finally, employees should not access any sites with explicit or illegal content, which may include but are not limited to pornography, violence, personal harassment, drug use or terrorism, which could incur legal and reputational damage.

Compliance to the employee social media policy will be measured in its effectiveness through performance metrics from two digital tools: a web censor software and a social media use time monitoring software. Foremost, a web censor software will be used to measure the amount of illicit or forbidden activity engaged in by employees on social media, and its database of restricted sites will be regularly updated to prevent access to illegal or explicit content, which has been shown to be effective at compliance enforcement (Inglezakis, 2018). Secondly, corporate computing devices will come installed with a 60-minute timer that tracks usage on social media sites, and automatically blocks access to those sites when the timer has elapsed. This would ensure strong automatic compliance to the policy (Paczkowski & Kuruzovich, 2016). Finally, a disciplinary policy will be implemented against any security breaches or attempts at circumvention.

In conclusion, the policies and compliance tools outlined above, as backed by empirical research, would ensure an effective and fairly implemented employee social media use policy.

References

Hudson, S. C., & Roberts, K. K. (2011). Drafting and implementing an effective social media policy. Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev., 18, 767.

Inglezakis, I. (2018). Surveillance of Electronic Communications in the Workplace and the Protection of Employees’ Privacy. In Social Issues in the Workplace: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice (pp. 971-986). IGI Global.

Jacobson, W. S., & Tufts, S. H. (2013). To post or not to post: Employee rights and social media. Review of public personnel administration, 33(1), 84-107.

O’Connor, K. W., Schmidt, G. B., & Drouin, M. (2016). Helping workers understand and follow social media policies. Business Horizons, 59(2), 205-211.

Paczkowski, W. F., & Kuruzovich, J. (2016). Checking email in the bathroom: monitoring email responsiveness behavior in the workplace. American Journal of Management, 16(2).

Shujaat, A., Rashid, A., & Muzaffar, A. (2019). Exploring the Effects of Social Media Use on Employee Performance: Role of Commitment and Satisfaction. International Journal of Human Capital and Information Technology Professionals, 10(3), 1-19.

Song, Q., Wang, Y., Chen, Y., Benitez, J., & Hu, J. (2019). Impact of the usage of social media in the workplace on team and employee performance. Information & Management, 56(8), 103160.