Benefits of Social Media for Employees
Discuss About The Journal Of Transnational Management Websites.
Technological advancements are modifying human resources management actions in organisations. Particularly, the social media has emerged as a fundamental tool in the contemporary corporate world. Organisations are increasingly using the social media to source for employees as well as marketing their products and services to the society. The universality of the social media enables those seeking jobs to have access to employers from all over the world. Likewise, the social media presents the employers with a wide pool for sourcing employees. Apart from employment, experts also point out that the social media enhances the productivity of employees and job satisfaction through improving communication in organisations and supporting external networking. Nevertheless, for organisations to benefit from all these advantages of the social media, they need to ensure that they have a comprehensive social media policy the warrants the privacy of the employees. Consequently, this reflective analysis compares the resilient issues identified by my group and those from other two groups. Specifically, this analysis compares the points identified by my team’s video to those from Henry’s and Saravan’s team.
My team’s video focused on the benefits that the employees of an organisation accrue from using the social media. The video identified four key benefits that the social media present to employees. These benefits are knowledge transfer, job satisfaction, improved communication, and relationship building. Before expounding on these four benefits, it is instrumental to outline why employees are a vital pillar in organisations. accounting to Nayar (2010), employees are valuable assets to organisations since they are the ones who enable firms to execute their daily operations as well as attain their strategic goals. As such, it is instrumental for employers to ensure that their employees have a conducive working environment to improve their productivity. Besides, the input of the employees defines the overall productivity of the employees.
Consequently, my team’s video established that the social media enhance employees’ productivity by improving their job satisfaction. Ramatulasamma (2003, p. 10) defines job satisfaction as favourableness or unfavourableness with which the employees view their work. Job satisfaction depends on how job requirements or supervision align with employees’ expectations. According to Demircioglu (2018), the use of the social media at the workplace enhance job satisfaction by increasing the workers’ self-determination. Improved job satisfaction results in employees’ commitment, thus enhancing the overall organisational productivity.
Knowledge Transfer
Moreover, the social media is a vital knowledge transfer tool. Employees gain access to new information such as emerging market trends and changing customer preferences through the social media. According to Ellison et al. (2015), the corporate social media sites allow employees to share knowledge with their colleagues at the workplace. For instance, the Watercooler system developed by software firm Hewlett-Packard allows the firm employees to interact with each other on how to enhance their competencies. Besides, such corporate social media sites are used to educate the employees on new trends in the business world.
Closely related to knowledge transfer is the networking potential presented by social media use in the workplace which allows employees to build professional relationships both at their places of work and externally. According to Sigala and Chalkiti (2015), the social media offer the employees with a platform where they interact with people outside their organisations. Such interactions allow employees to share and acquire knowledge thus enhancing their creativity and competence. In their analysis, Cao et al. (2016), the social media supports the deliberations of the social learning theory that cognitive development occurs best through socialisation. Consequently, through the social media, employees share and acquire information from their workmates and those working in other organisations. The gained knowledge is then used to enhance the productivity of the employees at their respective workplaces.
Importantly, my group’s video points out that the social media improves communication in organisations. Supporting this stance, Cardon and Marshall (2015) deliberate that the social media eradicates the communication barriers that exist between employees and the management, and also improves communication in teams. The social media makes the management of an organisation to be closer to its employees.
As noted in my team’s video, the social made makes the communication between the management and the employees less official thus eradicating the communication tension that dominates traditional workplaces. With the social media, employees communicate with each other as close friends, not based on their work position. As a result, this communication strategy fosters an intimate relationship between the employees subsequently leading to improved organisational productivity and job satisfaction.
On the other hand, Saravan’s team focused on how organisations are increasingly using the social media for recruitment actions. According to Saravan’s group video, the social media provides the employers with a reliable and fast platform for sourcing employees. Unlike the traditional means of recruitment, social media sites such as LinkedIn allows employees to select candidates from all over the world.
Job Satisfaction
According to Melanthiou et al., (2015), the social media makes organisational recruitment activities easy since the employers can view the skill of the potential candidates on through various social media profiles. Specifically, most employers admit the LinkedIn is vital social media site for sourcing employees. Besides, research points out that the number firms using the social media for recruitment is increasing significantly. This increase emanates from the efficiency, reliability and cost-effective attributes of the social media recruiting strategy.
Equally, the social media offers substantial benefits to those seeking jobs. Initially, job seekers relied on the mass media to identify organisations offering jobs. As such, these traditional sources of information restricted organisational recruitment activities at a local level. However, the social media has eliminated these employment boundaries. Due to its universality, the social media allows individuals to seek employment in international organisations.
Moreover, Saravan’s group video points out that the social media allows jobs seekers to acquire sufficient background information on the values, culture and corporate social responsibility actions of their potential employers. This ability enables individuals to ascertain if the organisation suites their competencies and beliefs. For instance, if a person wants to apply for the job at Samsung, they can easily obtain information on Samsung’s practices and culture from the firm social media page. As such, the social media equips those looking for jobs with sufficient information on organisations enabling them to make informed employment decisions.
However, Saravan’s group warns employers and those looking for jobs that they should scrutinise the information from social media to avoid being misled. There is a possibility of organisations or individuals lying about their practices and skills. As such, it is always advisable to complement the information gathered from the social media sites with other sources such as interviewing the individuals or interacting with former employees of an organisation.
The video from my group and the one from Saravans’s group address the benefits of the social media to employees and organisations. However, Henry’s group focused on the potential challenges that the social media causes at the workplace. Specifically, Henry’s group focuses on the sensitive issue of employee’s social media privacy at the workplace. According to Henry’s group, it is vital to for organisations to promote workers autonomy and privacy through the implementation of a comprehensive social media privacy policy. A study conducted by Stoughton et al. (2015) established that job seekers dislike employers who use individual’s social media profiles as a basis of job interview terming it as a breach of personal privacy.
Networking Potential
At the workplace, employers must ensure that they offer the employee with sufficient space to operate through a well-structured privacy policy. An infringement of employee privacy lowers their job satisfaction and trust in the organisation resulting in poor productivity (Chory et al., 2016). As such, employees need to ensure that they safeguard the social media privacy of their employees through a precise and comprehensive social media policy.
Importantly, this group activity was highly beneficial to my intellectual and interpersonal development. Through this activity, I gained significant information on the benefits, detriments, and challenges of social media use in the workplace. management, it enhanced my interpersonal skills such as teamwork and communication skills. This activity required all the group members to cooperate by contributing in all of the discussions and respecting the opinions of others.
However, I observed that several group members illustrated poor time management and communication skills. In some occasions, the group discussion commenced late due to poor time keeping by some team members. Besides, some group members were intolerant to ideologies that contradicted their beliefs. These conflicts were as a result of group dynamics which are prevalent in most new groups. Nonetheless, as time progressed, these differences were ironed out as the members understood each other. Subsequently, all the group members became cooperative and performed all the tasks allocated to them appropriately and promptly. Consequently, this activity enlightened me that managing teamwork is challenging. However, the key to attaining a functional group is by observing inclusivity and respecting the contributions of all members irrespective of their controversy.
Conclusively, all the groups agree that the social media has introduced efficiency and enhanced productivity in the corporate world. Social media improves communication, job satisfaction, networking, and knowledge transfer between employees. For the employers, the social media has made recruitment activities easy and affordable. However, to benefit from all these positives, organisations must implement comprehensive social media privacy policies to safeguard their employees’ privacy.
Reference list
Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D. & Zhang, X., 2016. Exploring the influence of social media on employee work performance. Internet Research, 26(2), pp. 529-545.
Cardon, P. W. & Marshall, B., 2015. The hype and reality of social media use for work collaboration and team communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(3), pp. 273-293.
Chory, R. M., Vela, L. E. & Avtgis, T. A., 2016. Organizational surveillance of computer-mediated workplace communication: employee privacy concerns and responses. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 28(1), pp. 23-43.
Demircioglu, M. A., 2018. Examining the Effects of Social Media Use on Job Satisfaction in the Australian Public Service: Testing Self-Determination Theory. Public Performance & Management Review, 41(2), pp. 300-327.
Ellison, N. B., Gibbs, J. L. & Weber, M. S., 2015. The use of enterprise social network sites for knowledge sharing in distributed organisations: The role of organisational affordances. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(1), pp. 103-123.
Melanthiou, Y., Pavlou, F. & Constantinou, E., 2016. The use of social network sites as an e-recruitment tool. Journal of Transnational Management, 20(1), pp. 31-49.
Nayar, V., 2010. Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Ramatulasamma, K., 2003. Job Satisfaction Of Teachers Educators. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.
Sigala, M. & Chalkiti, K., 2015. Knowledge management, social media and employee creativity. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Volume 45, pp. 44-58.
Stoughton, W. J., Thompson, F. L. & Meade, A. W., 2015. Examining applicant reactions to the use of social networking websites in pre-employment screening. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(1), pp. 73-88.
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