Essay on Regulating Social Media Usage in Professional Settings: Balancing Performance & Behaviour

Several business enterprises have embraced new technological measures to enhance organizational performance and productivity. However, the latest technologies have also transformed the workplace, especially the behavioural patterns of employees. The usage of social media within professional settings has been proved to have an impact either negatively or positively on the employees. Therefore, some organizations have set policy guidelines to regulate the usage of social media within professional settings, even though in several organizations, it is unacceptable. Occasional overuse and often misuse of social media in the workplace can affect the general performance of an organization. They can also jeopardize the social and economic face value of the organizational business. Even though the such technological avenues is not entirely unsuitable, it can lead to more harm than good for a company if it is inappropriately used. Social media is a continually evolving platform that is hurtful or helpful to individuals and businesses, although it can serve as a reliable tool for business growth when used effectively.

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The usage of social media within professional settings can be useful because it enhances the connectivity of employees with people around the globe with many conveniences. Social media is essential to employees as it enables them to connect with friends and families while they are at work. Hence, employees can effectively check on people they care about and keep updated despite their confinement in their offices (Kathy, 2019). Additionally, employees benefit from spending time on social media within professional settings because it gives them a mental break which enables them to have available shifts between hectic schedules. Therefore, employees can get a mental break by going through their social media feeds to keep their minds off work before resuming (Kathy, 2019). Consequently, social media enhances the exposure of employees to the life outside of work hence acting of a reminder that life is more than work.

However, the use of social media should be regulated because it can also result in severe effects on employees. The severe impacts of social media use can distress both personnel and proprietors. For instance, the use of social media at the workplace is highly addictive because it absorbs people when they entertain themselves with live feeds and posts of photos and videos from various global dimensions. Hence, the addiction to using social media does not provide any feeling of genuine fulfilment but rather keeping the employees preoccupied, therefore limiting their productivity. Moreover, workers who get extremely habituated to social media frequently have the utmost possibility of slow performance at work because they tend to lose focus (Eleana, 2019). The loss of focus by employees at the workplace can result in possible mistakes which can affect the general productivity of the organization. Therefore, employees should restrict the time they spend on social media to avoid addiction and enhance productivity at the workplace.

Another negative implication of usage of social media within professional settings is that it can also interfere with the privacy of the employees. Employees can get trapped in the usage of social media within professional setting and overshare some details of their personal lives that should be kept private. Hence, that extremity in the usage of social media can exploit individual privacy and lead other people in the workplace to make prejudices based on personal choices and lifestyle. The colleagues at the workplace can also form predispositions based on the social media activity of an individual with which they can use to make ridiculous bias rumors in the workplace (Eleana, 2019). The exploitation of individual privacy at the workplace as a result of excessive use of social media can also lead other people in the workplace to overlook their performance and co-relation with other people in the organization. Hence, it is best if people maintain professionalism in the workplace.

The routine usage of social media among employees in the workstation can also expose them to risks of suffering psychological unhealthiness by making them dependent on the people around them to enhance their feeling of validation and gratification. Social media can be a cause for mental ill-health when people start considering the number of likes or shares of the social media posts as measures of self-worth and their significance to people. Hence, people who determine their self-worth by the extent of the reaction to their social media posts only feel delighted when their jobs go viral on social media (Eleana, 2019). Circumstances of unexpected turnout of events can lead to cause psychological distress which can affect the productivity of employees at the place of work.

Moreover, the use of social media can make people prone to bullying and harassment, which can result from uncontrolled commentaries and demeaning opinions by colleagues on social media. Hence, such discriminatory and demeaning ideas can be ways of cyberbullying and can impact the psychological health of an individual. Employees may feel humiliated and intimidated when they experience forms of cyberbullying especially from their co-workers. Therefore, the intimidation and humiliation can cause severe mental challenges that can contribute to a decline in the productivity of an individual employee and the overall business (Eleana, 2019).

Consequently, the usage of social media within professional settings can also lead employees to transfer their challenges to work problems. Hence, social media can influence the challenges of employees to aggravate and affect their performance at work because personal challenges can keep them preoccupied, thus limiting productivity. In some occasions, issues can arise between two employees hence creating an unprofessional and awkward workspace that is not suitable for productivity. On the same note, employees can also express their opinions on social media when they become frustrated at the workplace. Ideas that employees reveal on social media when they are frustrated could be discriminatory, which can result in negative publicity and taint the name of the organization (John, 2019). Hence, such discriminatory content can lower the reputation of the organization, which can result in the decline of business value.

However, the usage of social media within professional settings can not only have adverse effects on the employees but also on the employers. Employers and their business undertakings can also be at stake due to the inappropriate usage of social media within professional settings. For instance, the use of social media can limit employee engagement at the workplace as they can become addicted to the digital realm and hardly engage in organizational productivity. The decline in employee engagement can lead to a decrease in employee relations, which can result in the reduction in team performance or even instances of harassment in the workspace (Kathy, 2019). Therefore, circumstances that end in the decline in employee engagement or the decrease in employee relations can cause deterioration of the profitability of a business. Moreover, the market value of and organization would also decline hence negatively affecting the employers and the company.

The usage of social media within professional settings can also depress the workplace morale of employees as a result of the social discussion of topics related to compensation and benefits, which can ignite jealousy among employees in the workplace. Organizations can also suffer a decline in employee productivity as a result of a decrease in employee morale. However, according to a study by Nuclear Research, employee productivity can also be damaged because employees can get distracted by social media other than concentrating on professional activities at the workplace (Kathy, 2019). Even though some employees can visit social media platforms for business networking and growth, the level of distraction from workplace performance and the implication on organizational productivity outweighs the positivity.

Businesses can also suffer collateral damage as a result of the use of social media by employees due to increased vulnerability to possible breaches of organizational confidentiality or the possibility of a tarnished business image. When employees use social media without restrictions at the workplace, they can post professional updates carelessly and even leak important business information that the organization is yet to publicize. Also, access details such as usernames and even security passwords that are used in the organizational systems can be unintentionally revealed by the employees who frequently use social media in the workplace (Kathy, 2019). The exposure of such crucial and confidential information to the general public can jeopardize the security of the company and put the business at risk to online threats and even criminal activities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social media is a continually evolving platform that is hurtful or helpful to individuals and businesses. However, it can serve as a robust tool for business growth when used effectively. There are several positive implications of social media use in the workplace, although the adverse effects outweigh the benefits. The negative repercussions range from impacts on the performance of individual employees to the overall performance of a business. Generally, the negative implications of social media use in the workplace can lead to the deterioration of organizational productivity in various ways examined in this paper. Hence, considering the alternative benefits, employers should establish policies to regulate the usage of social media within professional settings to avoid the effects resulting from overuse.

References

Eleana Stylianou. (2019, August 5). Negative effects of social media in the workplace. CareerAddict | Kickstart and Advance Your Career. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://www.careeraddict.com/negative-effects-of-social-media-in-the-workplace

John Cleary. (2019, January 10). The impact of social media at the workplace. InhouseLegal. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://inhouse-legal.eu/in-house-managment/social-media-workplace/

Kathy. (2019, July 3). 25 problems with social media in the workplace (Employee and employer adverse effects). Open Sourced Workplace. Retrieved April 28, 2020, from https://www.opensourcedworkplace.com/news/25-problems-with-social-media-in-the-workplace-employee-and-employer-adverse-effects