Identifying Issues Related to Tolu’s Conduct
1. Identify and critically analyze the issues related to Tolu’s alleged conduct that have been raised by the company against her in the above scenario. These issues could include managing conduct, company reputation, staff communications and privacy at work.
2. As an HR consultant, critically discuss the implications for good practice with regards to managing social media within the workplace.
The privacy rights of the employee encompass employee’s personal information and activities. It is an essential subject in the human resource management. Nowadays, the private companies have been strengthening the surveillance process on the employees. However, the organizations provide the privacy policy for the employees and other staffs. The monitoring process of the business has helped the organization to capture every detailed at the workplace (Bhaskar 2012). The advancement of the technology has provided the immense facilities to engage security at the workplace. In human resource management, an employee has a right to maintain his privacy at the workplace. However, some organizations do not allow their employee to keep privacy in the business. Private companies do not bother using personal information of the employees and they accomplish it through several processes such as electronic monitoring, camera monitoring, drug and alcohol testing and personal searches (Jensen 2013).
Many organizations do not follow the federal laws. Managers of the organization invade the privacy of their employees to collect personal information. It is harmful to the employees as it may create difficulties in the career growth. There should be a limitation of accessing the data of employees and other members of the organization. In this scenario, the holiday company accesses the information of their employees to track their personal thoughts against the organizational behavior.
In this scenario, the holiday company has decided to terminate an employee named Tolu, a 25-year-old woman. The company has decided to terminate her employment due her wrong comment posted on the social media platform called Face book. However, Tolu has approached me to look at this matter as she thought that she has been unfairly treated. Being an HR consultant, I will identify and critically analyze the issue. Several issues of the organization such as managing conduct, company reputation, staff communication and maintaining the privacy at work have been discussed in an effective manner. In this scenario, the prime focus is on the employee empowerment. In this scenario, the overview of Kanter’s theory on structural empowerment has been discussed in an effective manner.
Managing Social Media in the Workplace
1. In this scenario, Tolu has made a comment on the Facebook. Her comment was “I think I’ll call in sick because I just can’t face working for that idiot with this headache.” She thought that she had a freedom of speech. The company to track employee’s performance often uses monitoring process. They often access the private information of employees, which is not ethical. It is an argumentative subject whether the business should have the access to employee’s personal information or not. Some of the business head might say that they perform this to enhance individual performance at the workplace (Kalia 2012). Tolu has right to speech anything on the social media. She has a personal life. Thereby, the company should not bother about her personal thoughts posted on the Facebook. On the contrary, it has an effect on the company’s reputation in the market. Frequently, the organization wants to create improved image in the market so that they could do more business.
In this scenario, the comment of Tolu could have a possibility to create the negative image of the company in the market. Therefore, the organization might face the difficulty in retaining existing employees. It is also hard to engage new employees for the job. On the other hand, the holiday company also has some disputes in their business policies. For example, they review the social networking sites of new candidates before recruiting them in the organization. It is unethical way of checking employee’s personal information. Therefore, the organization does not maintain the privacy policy properly at the workplace. They always observe the staff communication so that the employee could not criticize company’s policy and the managerial decisions. Managers of the organization need to maintain the code of conducts such as honesty, accountability, respect, integrity and flexibility (Rust 2015). These conducts facilitate the managers to maintain a healthy relation with the employees. In this scenario, the human resource managers did not allow Tolu to share her thoughts on the social media platform. Consequently, the higher management decided to terminate her employment. On the contrary, the negative feedback of employee could harm the company’s brand value. The HR manager of the holiday company thought that Tolu’s comment on the social media could cause difficulty for employee retention. In the modern age, technological advancement has increased the opportunity to share several ideas and view on a particular topic (Sankrusme 2012). Therefore, I think Tolu has a right to share her personal thoughts on the social. Whatever she wrote on the wall, it was her opinion and the organization should not bother about it. If Tolu had a bad performance record at the workplace, then HR manager could have the right to terminate her employment. Hence, in this scenario, the managerial decision is not justified. Some organizations have provided rights to their employees to share their individual feedback about company’s services so that it can be open communication channel (Collings 2015). For example, Tesco, a giant in the supermarket industry, has the policy to use social media to communicate internally and externally with the employees. They believe that this practice allows them to keep transparency in the communication process.
Development Communication Theory
Development communication theory is built on an idea. The idea is to the implication of modern media of social communication at the service of the development (Collings et al. 2015). The organization should follow the development communication theory to enhance the effective communication with the employees so that the transparency could be maintained. No development can happen without proper communication with the employees. Under the development communication theory, the media takes the responsibility to carry out active developmental programs in the organization (Denisi 2012). It accepts the restrictions and instructions from the state. The media subordinates them to political, cultural, economic and social needs.
In this scenario, the holiday company should understand the need of social media to accumulate feedback of their employees. Feedback could be positive or negative however it should not cause any termination of employment of any employee. Tolu has a right to comment against her managers. Therefore, the HR manager should ask her about the reason for commenting such thing on her social media blog. Social media plays a vital role in communicating with the employee and customers (Dessler 2014). It facilitates the organization to maintain open communication with employees. In this scenario, Tolu had shared his experience and feelings about the higher manager of the holiday company. Therefore, the HR manager should ask her about the issue that she had been facing at the workplace.
Numerous organizations support the social media platform as it allows the employees to discuss their personal ideas, news, and queries (Dowling et al. 2013). On the contrary, the holiday company does not support this idea of collecting feedback from employees. However, they check social media blogs of the new employee to gather some knowledge about their personal traits. Therefore, this behavioral act of higher management of Holiday Company has made a contradiction.
The theory focuses on the structural empowerment that focuses on the structures within the organization rather than the individual qualities. Kanter believes that the leader’s power will grow by sharing the strength through empowering. Moreover, Kanter has discussed that the employees could improve their skills in the business through using tools, information, and support from the higher management team. By analyzing the theory, six conditions of employee empowerment could be established. These conditions are such as Opportunity for advancement, access to information, access to support access to resources formal power.
In this scenario, Tolu has made his comment on the social media about the managerial behavior in this organization. He has a right to share his individual thoughts about the organizational behavior. The management has taken strict steps against him as they have terminated his employment without analyzing the situation. In creates contrast with the theory, as the employee does not access the support from the higher authority.
Kanter’s Theory on Structural Empowerment
2. It is debatable questions whether the access of social media creates an adverse impact on the organization or not. Many business heads have accepted the power of social media. They say that the social media has the power to keep the employee motivated for better productivity. The practice of using social media in the workplace does not necessarily affect the productivity in the business (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013). There are some distinct advantages of social media.
Empower employees:
Employees often think that their voice is not being listened by the higher authority. Therefore, the organization could set up an internal communication channel through online platform so that the employees could share their individual thoughts to the HR manager (Ivancevich and Konopaske 2013). This process facilitates to decrease the corporate social hierarchy. It initiates a collaborative exchange of ideas. Moreover, it facilitates to eliminate the business silos that provide increased employee engagement. In this scenario, Tolu should be provided some level of autonomy and responsibility for decision-making. It was his personal decision to share organizational behavior on the social media blogs. It engages several theoretical aspects such as socio-structural perspective, psychological approach and critical perspective (Thacker 2012). The socio-structural perspective includes developing organizational policies, practices and structures to provide employees power. On the other hand, the psychological approach facilitates employees develop their competency and self- determination (Zafar 2013). Finally, the critical perspective argues that efforts to create empowerment may lead to more controls over employees.
Productivity:
Employers may have the concern about the potential loss of productivity in the business. However, the recent studies have shown that the practice of using social media during the workday truly facilitate to enhance the productivity and the retention. When the employee enhances the use of social media interaction, strong employees can easily balance their workload and deadlines (Kramar 2013). Through the engagement of using social media in the workplace, the employees could utilize the resources. They could connect socially. Therefore, the social media helps them to achieve the social support and compliment for their delivered work.
Analyzing data:
With the engagement of social media technology, employees could have the opportunity to analyze internal company trends. They could consolidate their skill sets discover the potential leaders for business growth in the market. Social media could provide the additional information that could encourage shaping the internal programs (Thacker 2012).
Social selling:
Social networking could be a powerful and valuable tool to prospect and develop the existing business in the market. However, it is the new technology for those who do not believe in the power of social media tool. Through the engagement of using social selling, the management could extend his network and strategically connect with the people.
HR “Best” practices:
The best practices or the high-performance practices at the workplace can be described as human resource methods and system that have preservative, universal and the positive effects on the organizational performance. The prime idea rotates around commitment. There are some best practices of the human resource management in the workplace such as below:
- Providing job security to the employees
- Hire selective people
- Effectiveness of team performance
- Proper compensation strategies
- Effective performance appraisal for employees
- Providing enhanced training and development
- Increase communication with employees and other staffs
- Flatter organization to reduce the status differences
- Proper promotional criteria
- Employee empowerment
- Rotational job
- Career progression
The organization must follow the performance monitoring benchmark to point out the individual performance development process. In the best practice model, it includes a bundle of HR policies along with the reward system. The main purpose of this theory is to motivate those employees who are responsible for organization’s competitive advantages (Zafar 2013). However, some people criticize the human resource best practice theory as they consider it nothing more than a group of methodology.
In this scenario, the higher management has decided to terminate the employment of Tolu. However, the HR manager has never considered her performance at the workplace. As per the human resource “best practices” theory, the manager should provide benefits to the employee who facilitates the organization to enhance productivity. Tolu had been dedicated at the workplace, and she did her job with full responsibility. However, the HR manager of Holiday Company has thought that Tolu made the wrong comment about her senior in the office. It might affect the reputation of the company. The wrong comment could affect other employee’s mind, and hence, it might affect the entire productivity of the company (Srimuk and Choibamroo 2015). On the contrary, Tolu had a right to express her personal feelings on the social media. However, she was not aware that the company could explore her comment.
By analyzing the scenario, I can admit that the holiday company did not follow HR “best practice theory” and they have erroneously decided to terminate her employment before asking the reason behind commenting such things. Employee empowerment is the key factor of the HR policy. The holiday company has decreased empowerment by taking such serious step towards Tolu. As per the theory, Social media engagement is the best platform to enhance knowledge and productivity at the workplace. However, this origination did not allow her to express personal feelings on the social media. In this scenario, the management behavior made contradiction as they collect information about new employees forms the social media but they did not allow others to criticize their management.
It can be concluded that the human resource system of the holiday company was not properly implemented. The organization was not ready to accept criticism about their work culture and hence, they have taken the stringent decision to terminate employment. In this scenario, the management uses the strength of social media as they collect information about a new candidate. However, they did not accept Tolu’s comment on the social media. Therefore, it suggests the contradictory nature of the organization. It can affect the productivity at the workplace.
Being a human resource analyst, I have analyzed the scenario critically. Several human resource practices have been discussed in an appropriate manner to analyze the topic. The effectiveness of social media and its impact on the employees have been analyzed for the betterment of the research. Although Tolu had made the wrong comment about his senior, the HR manager should encourage her for providing the reason for it. Therefore, the sudden decision of the HR manager about Tolu’s termination of employment is not justified, and it could hamper the productivity of the Holiday Company.
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