Essay on Social Media in the Workplace: How Employers Can Guide its Use

Most employers fear the flooding of events and the impact of social media on employee productivity. Unfortunately, employees might be using it regardless of anti-social media policies at the workplace. According to the Pew Institute of Research, about 77% of employees in the United States use social media while at work (Greenwood et al., 2016). Employers need to find ways of guiding the use of social media to benefit their interests. Therefore, I will focus on ways social media in the workplace can help employees improve their productivity.

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Employers should discourage occasional breaks purported for mental relief. When given the opportunity, workers can take breaks at their pleasure whenever and wherever they choose apart from break sites (Best, 2018). After which they can regain their concentration and deliver quality in their various assignments. Besides, employees can strengthen their relationships with colleagues from other companies professionally. For instance, better connections may result in sales leads, business opportunities, interest in other employments, and probably new leads (Keynes, 2018).

Social media can also be a solution for employees when dealing with severe work problems. For example, they may opt to post a question on social media platforms and various quick responses. Besides, it also helps in building and strengthening relationships amongst workers, which in turn boosts the productivity of the organization. McKinsey Global Research Institute revealed that 72% of companies using social media are not discovering their full potential (Bhimani et al., 2019). However, Kanes (2017) confirms that if these companies were to put in use the social media platform fully, they would improve the productivity of employees by 25%.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social is undergoing massive changes and spreading rapidly across the globe. It stands as an ever-present product, and at the workplace, it is unavoidable. Employers should, therefore, encourage their employees to use it productively instead of castigating them on its usage. Also, they should reinforce by demonstrating the usage of social media in improving companies' productivity.

References

Best, J. (2018). Breaking Digital Gridlock,+ Website: Improving your bank's digital future by making mechnology changes now. John Wiley & Sons.

Bhimani, H., Mention, A. L., & Barlatier, P. J. (2019). Social media and innovation: A systematic literature review and future research directions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 144, 251-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.10.007

Greenwood, S., Perrin, A., & Duggan, M. (2016). Social media update 2016. Pew Research Center, 11(2).

Hobern, D., Apostolico, A., Arnaud, E., Bello, J. C., Cantos, D., Dubois, G., ... & Harrison, J. (2017). Global biodiversity informatics outlook: delivering biodiversity knowledge in the information age. Comprehensive biodiversity information facility (Secretariat).

Kane, G. C. (2017). The evolutionary implications of social media for organizational knowledge management. Information and Organization, 27(1), 37-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2017.01.001

Keynes, J. M. (2018). The general theory of employment, interest, and money. Springer.