Social Media: Boon or Bane in the Workplace

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Business communication
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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

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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,