Social Media: Boon or Bane in the Workplace

This document discusses the impact of social media in the workplace, including its benefits and challenges. It explores the need for a social media policy and effective communication strategies. The document also highlights the importance of monitoring online activities and maintaining privacy.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Business communication
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
MANAGEMENT
To: Director of Social Media
From: Jane Wilson
Subject: Social media: boon or bane in the workplace
Date: 5th May 2019
Respected Sir/Madam,
Social media has caused the advent of digitalization in the workplaces. It has assisted the
personnel to the increase the trafficking of the audience towards the brand image.
Uploading about the recent trends on the social media has enhanced the awareness of the
audience about the ways and means for expanding the scope and arena of the business.
However, lack of proper managerial approach has led to the shameful incident, where one
of the staffs posted wrong comments. This cannot be considered as wrong because she
lacked the understanding regarding the proper use of social networking sites like Facebook.
Challenges in the traditional communication challenges
Going beyond Twitter and adopting Facebook reflects the attempts towards aligning the
business with the modern trends of the competitive ambience of the market trends.
Conducting advertising campaigns on the social media is apt in terms of identifying the
target audience who can contribute in enhancing the sales revenue and profit margin. In
this case, Primary schools were targeted for promoting healthy eating among the children. I
am elated at the easy access, which is provided to the employees for accessing the social
media for completing the allocated duties and responsibilities. Social media acts as an
agent in terms of establishing contact with large number of audience at a single point of
time, upgrading the standards and quality of the parameter of customer relationship
management.
Impact of the negative behaviour on the organizational identity
On account of the discussion with Brian Jones, I felt that monitoring of the online activities

2
MANAGEMENT
of the employees is necessary in terms of preventing the illegal scandals and issues, which
can spoil the reputation of the company. Meeting with Judith Pringle, Director of Finance,
made me realize that Facebook might be a wastage of time, as it distracted the attention of
the employees from the allocated duties and responsibilities. Here, I can relate the case of
Alice, who uploaded the pictures she took of the campaign, KidsEat on her personal
Facebook page. She cannot be blamed, as she did it out of misunderstanding the actual
operation of Facebook. I think Paul should have conducted deeper investigations for
effective dealing of the case rather than taking stern action like termination.
According to the rules and regulations of the Fairwork Australia, it is unethical to terminate
an employee for posting derogatory comments about their boss after office hours in
personal Facebook page. Alice cannot be placed in this category as she posted pictures of
the food items for promoting the advertising campaign on healthy eating among the school
children. Her only fault was that she wrote junk foods under the pictures, which conveyed
wrong message to the audience. This necessitates the need for monitoring the online
activities of the staffs. One of the other points to be noted is that Alice posted the pictures
and comments on her personal Facebook page. Intervening into the personal social media
sites would make the staffs feel that the managers have no respect towards their privacy.
This can create negative outcomes. Moreover, this intervention would indicate a disruption
in the communication channels with the audience, a crisis in disseminating the important
information to them about the recent trends and challenges.
Social media policy
In order to avert these challenges, a policy is crucial. The incident of Alice is not violation
of the elements of social media policy. On the contrary, it reflects lack of training and
control towards the usage of the access towards using the social media. Using the social
media for the personal purpose is against the workplace ethics. As a matter of specification,

3
MANAGEMENT
it is a deviant behaviour towards compliance with the standards and protocols of the Data
Protection Act (1998). This can be done with the consideration of proper communication
channels, which would reduce the cases of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. High
level managerial meetings need to be conducted for formulating the policies in a proper
manner. Involving the stakeholders and shareholders would yield positive results.
Considering communication plan templates can be one of an effective option in terms of
conveying the exact information to the staffs. The drafts regarding the strategy can be sent t
the higher authorities, so that the effectiveness can be measured in terms of disseminating
the exact information to the audience.
While monitoring the activities, rationality needs to be maintained, so that the staffs do not
feel that their privacy is bring hampered. Herein lays the effectiveness of Data Protection
Act (1998), which would be crucial in terms of maintaining the confidentiality in the
individual sentiments of the staffs. Notifying the date of the meeting to the staffs would be
effective for maintaining the stability in the relationship with the stakeholders. Policy
documents and papers need to be recorded in safe locations. If possible secret and
confidential codes can be assigned to the policies, which would be a wise step for averting
the issues of information leakage while sending them to the higher authorities for
verification.
Communication strategy
Reviews and audits of the posts by the staffs would be helpful in terms of tracking the
comments, which can spoil the reputation of Sunshine 100. These reviews would be
fruitful for mapping the areas, where the staffs need training. Strategic planning in thus
direction would help in reducing the misutilization of the access to use social media. Post
training tests would be one of the means for assessing the capability of the staffs towards
making practical application of the learnt skills in conducting the allocated duties and

4
MANAGEMENT
responsibilities. Scoring the performance of the staffs in the tests would help in making
estimates regarding the reputation, which would be earned through social media
advertisements and campaigns. The following template can be used for conveying the
necessary information to the staffs:
Date 10th May 2019
Audience Staffs having social media access
Sender Jane Wilson, director of social media
Key message “Your online activities would be monitored”
Desired outcome Effective and judicious use of social media
Medium Notice
Materials Policy documents and paper, notice
Frequency After 3 months, reviews and audits would be conducted

5
MANAGEMENT
Bibliography
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing
customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Hänninen, N. and Karjaluoto, H., 2017. The effect of marketing communication on business
relationship loyalty. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 35(4), pp.458-472.
Lacka, E. and Chong, A., 2016. Usability perspective on social media sites' adoption in the
B2B context. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, pp.80-91.
McFarland, L.A. and Ployhart, R.E., 2015. Social media: A contextual framework to guide
research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(6), p.1653.
Meikle, G., 2016. Social media: Communication, sharing and visibility. Routledge.
Poell, T. and Van Dijck, J., 2015. Social media and activist communication. Poell, Thomas &
José van Dijck (2015). Social Media and Activist Communication. In The Routledge
Companion to Alternative and Community Media, pp.527-537.
Rydén, P., Ringberg, T. and Wilke, R., 2015. How managers' shared mental models of
business–customer interactions create different sensemaking of social media. Journal of
Interactive Marketing, 31, pp.1-16.
Trottier, D., 2016. Social media as surveillance: Rethinking visibility in a converging world.
Routledge.