Social media are websites and applications that allow for users to create and share information or take part in social networking. Social media allows for the rapid distribution of events going on across the world and, in many ways, is beneficial to our daily lifestyle. In today’s society, social media has become a norm and is being used by people of all age groups. Roughly 67 percent of the U.S. population engages in the use of social media. Out of the teenage population, 77 percent use social media. Teenagers engage in social networking to connect with peers and discuss the events of the day. What social media users are unaware of are the drawbacks of their social media addiction.

Employers can use social media in two different ways in the hiring process. Employers can use social media to recruit candidates and advertise the job opening. Employers can also use the sites to perform background checks to confirm a candidate’s qualifications before hiring them. Many of the employers today check social media sites and consider prospective employees’ social media activity in the job hiring process. These social sites allow for employers to consider both sides of prospective employee’s background before making the decision to hire them. Although social media is a tool in the process it should not be the sole decider. When screening job applicants, it appears that a fewer number of employers are using social media in the process. In the SHRM survey conducted in 2013, 22 percent of the responders reported that they use social sites in the job hiring process. This is a decline from the 34 percent in 2008. In order to effectively use social media as a tool in the job hiring process, employers must take certain precautions. Employers must be consistent in their use of social media in the process and not single out certain job applicants. Employers must also consider the candidate’s post and not what other people have said about them. If the employer decides not to hire the applicant, employers should keep track of the reasoning behind their decision. Through following these precautions, employers may affectively use social media as a tool in the job hiring process.

Current employees are also under constant observation as they engage in the numerous social media sites. CNN conducted an interview with 10 employees who have felt the repercussions of the negative use of social media sites. The article highlights the reasoning behind their dismissal from their jobs. This article is a perfect example of the drawbacks of social media sites in the workplace. Due to their negative posts involving things in the workplace, the employers had no choice but to dismiss the employee. Employees must be cautious of their online persona and consider the drawbacks of their actions.

Social media is a great resource and has acted as a stimulus for advances in today’s society, but can also come with many consequences. Social sites have led to the dismissal of employees and have even prevented applicants from standing a chance. Social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter are accessible to everyone and users must take this into account.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/06/living/buzzfeed-social-media-fired/

http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2014/0914/pages/0914-social-media-hiring.aspx

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/teens-fact-sheet/

An employee's personal and social life should not affect how people view them in the workplace, as long as it is not a direct threat to the company or the image of the company. Individuals have the freedom to create whatever kind of blog or social media account they so ever choose. As long as it does not effect them in the workplace, it should not be an issue. However, when an employee is participating in a corporate blog, they should behave in a respectable, professional manner.  This is a response to the issue is stated in  "Legal and ethical issues of the corporate blogosphere". It states that such blog posts can be a risk. According to an article from I-Scoop, having a corporate blog is good because it shows that a company is able to adapt to and keep up with today's society.

Yes, I do believe social media has a place, just not at work.  After reading the article about pros and cons of social media, http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/socialnetworkingsitespolicy.aspx, it should be obvious to any company that it should not be allowed.  The pros are so few, provides an opportunity to widen business contacts, expands market research, implements marketing campaigns, delivers communications and directs interested people to specific web sites - See more at: http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/socialnetworkingsitespolicy.aspx#sthash.JZfxiAMc.dpuf.  But as far as the cons, there are to many to list on this blog.  As far as from a business aspect the ones that stick out to me are the possibility of employees representing a company in a poor light.  A disgruntle employee can cause serious damage to a company by leaking company secrets on social media.  By letting employees use social media at work, opens your network to cyber attacks, viruses, and phishing schemes.  The amount of bandwidth needed for all employees being able to use social media will end up costing the company a lot of money.   Not to mention the countless hours of loss productivity, the inter-office problems that come along with it such as social media fighting.

I do believe that a company can use social media to their benefit if done correctly.  Not just anyone or everyone should be allowed to represent a company on social media.  I think a company should have social media division, possibly part of their marketing or IT departments.  This way everything is monitored, they know exactly who and how this person is representing the company.  This also keeps network security breaches minimal and can be quickly quarantined.

In my opinion social media can be a good thing, but the risk is substantially higher than the reward for any company to allow that go on during working hours.  Facebook can wait until after work.

Social media is used by many people and companies all around the world. It has changed the way others perceive one another and it is also a way through which different companies and businesses communicate with one another. Large companies and businesses use blogging as a way to communicate with other people around the world and sell itself to individuals to make a profit. Most companies use blogging to attract a larger audience of people so that they can sell their product. For example Images USA, a company that my dad works in requires that employees  make a twitter to make communication between individuals easier and also to sell their product. Youtube advertisements were also used so that my dad’s company could sell their products. Social media and blogging does play a huge role in work places as employers of companies use it to communicate with others, express how they are feeling, what they are doing, and etc. Facebook, twitter, and Instagram are three main social media websites used by millions of people. Employers should be careful of what they post on these websites because if they degrade or say anything negative about their company, then they will get fired. The CEO of different companies do check their employers’ social media and this determines whether or not they will or will not stay in the job market. For example, my sister had a part time job in McDonalds last summer where employers checked their employees Facebook every 3 months. They were very strict about the information that the employees posted. I believe that social media use in the workplace has both positive and negative effects. If the people in the job use it in a beneficial way and blog positive things that will not affect them in their workplace, then it is perfectly okay. However, if the employee does not use it properly and complains/degrades their job in any way or just post unnecessary things, then it is not a good thing. Another concern that employers have about their employees using social media and blogging in the workforce is that it decreases productivity as the employees are too engaged in Facebook or Twitter that their focus in the job is decreasing. This is why I believe that a lot of workplaces ban the use of cell phones so that people can actually focus on their job and do their job right, instead of excessively blogging on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and etc. Social media and blogging is used on a day to day basis and even I am guilty of it as I do use Twitter and Instagram a lot to blog about how I feel, what I am doing, and post pictures with captions on Instagram.

Source:    http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/workforce-management/employee-performance-management/blocking-social-media-us.aspx

Many companies have policies that limit what you can and cannot post on social media sites about your employer. In some states employers will even ask for your username or password for the social media account. The National Labor Relations Act protects the employee’s right to work-related conversations whether the discussion takes place at work or on social media. The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that supports the Act found that some employer policies and disciplinary actions violated the federal labor law.  Labor Board Officials concluded that is illegal to adopt broad social media policies which often produce confusion and uncertainty. These policies often discourage workers to have work-related conversations, a right protected by the federal law. However if a workers comments are personal vendetta and not work related, the employees have the right to act against him or her.

A fair policy should not punish an employee based on comments and posts on social media unless there is proof that this activity is damaging to the company. Lewis L. Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, said “No one should be fired for anything they post that’s legal, off-duty and not job-related.”  On the other hand, disclosure of confidential information such as product introduction it is illegal, therefore should be punished.

While I do not necessarily agree with, I understand monitoring workers on social media. I see no illegal activity as long as the information is public. No company would want to be represented by an unprofessional or irresponsible person. Think if one of our Georgia State professors would post embarrassing pictures or rude comments. Would your opinion change about him/her? What if several faculty members are engaging in different extracurricular activities that paints them in a negative light?  Georgia State University would be rumored to have unprofessional staff; therefore prospective students would consider other schools to invest in.

After reading about the labor’s board rulings on social media policies, I am not sure that companies are going to back off, instead they will change tactics. So they might not fire you for that tweet, post, or Instagram picture.  But they can certainly fire you for other “reasons.” Too many occurrences, underqualified, overqualified just to name a few.  In other words they can make it look like your activity on social networking has nothing to do with this. Employees who use social media should think about this probability…

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/technology/employers-social-media-policies-come-under-regulatory-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

http://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/fact-sheets/nlrb-and-social-media

Due to the nature of what I was discussing, I had to delete my blog post, it was going to affect things other than my English grade.  Dr. Wharton, you can find the post in a Google Doc in my blog folder, the file name is also the title of the blog post.  If any of my classmates have an urge within them to read my blogging brilliance, then I'll be more than happy to share it with them on Google Drive and take critiques.

Scotty Krieg