Impact of Social Media on Employee Productivity

The study aims to investigate the impact of social media on employee productivity in organizations. The study will provide insights into the various social media platforms used by employees and their impact on employee productivity.

Running Head: EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 1
Impact of Social Media on Employee Productivity
Name
Institution

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 2
1.0 Introduction
The rapid growth of technological developments and internet use has revolutionized the
modern business practices. The growth of social media has had immense effects on the growth
and development of business practices (Dreher, 2014). Many businesses or organizations have
shifted their focus on using social media to enhance the growth of their business strategies such
as marketing, brand promotion, customer engagements and also in conducting market research.
The development of effective social media usage strategies or policies contributes to the
increased organization and business growth or productivity (Huang, 2015). The rapid growth of
social media platforms has led to the formation of virtual communities who interact on a daily
basis and therefore has been found to have the significant impact on business growth. With
increased social media usage, organizational employees have been exposed to engage most of
their time in various social networking sites for both interactive social activities with their friends
and relatives as well as for business purposes as directed by their organization goals and
objectives (Miles & Mangold, 2014). Different research works have resulted in the findings that
there exists a healthy relationship between social media usage and organization productivity.
This study aims to develop a project proposal to investigate the impact of social media usage on
the performance of employees in organizations.
The organization of this project research proposal will comprise of different sections
which will helps us in developing the scope of our research problem statement. The first section
provides an introduction to the research proposal by highlighting the key issue under analysis.
The second section of the proposal provides detailed statement of our research proposal while the
third section will provide detailed research aim, objectives as well as research questions. The
fourth section provides a justification of the project proposal research statement while section

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 3
five of the study will provide the research conceptual framework discussing the relevant
literature review and other ideas supporting our research project. Section six of the study will
provide a detailed analysis of the research methodology and the presentation of secondary data
while section seven will provide the organization of the research proposal, the proposed project
budget as well as the project schedule.
2.0 detailed analysis of the Research Statement Problem
Social media has gained a lot of significance in the modern corporate world with some
businesses using various social networking sites as direct channel of communication and
interactions with their customers, used as a marketing tool for the company brands awareness
and exposure (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). It is therefore undeniable that social media has
significantly impacted business growth in most organizations and effective utilization of the
various social media platforms can grant an organization or business a competitive advantage in
the various markets or industry. However, most research has established that employee
productivity or performance cannot be entirely be determined by their social media activity.
Different scholars have engaged in different studies to investigate the impact of social media on
business growth and development, in enhancing customer service provision, interaction and
brand promotion and marketing strategies (Ali-Hassan, 2015). The research findings found a
strong relationship between social media usage in organizations and organizational performance.
However, there has been limited research or literature gap in understanding the impact of social
media on employee performance. Therefore this study will provide or develop a research project
proposal to investigate the impact of social media on employee productivity.

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 4
3.0 proposed research Aim, Objective and Research Questions
The aim of this study is to develop a research project proposal investigating the impact of
social media on employee productivity in an organization. The research also aims at identifying
the various social networking platforms used by various organizations or employees and their
impact on employee productivity (Kasemsap, 2016). The study also seeks to investigate the
relationship between social media usage and change in employee attitudes towards their work as
well as the social media factors contributing to positive or negative influence on employee
productivity in an organization.
For the development of a reliable, valid and relevant project proposal, this study will be
guided by various research objectives in enhancing our fact-finding and evaluation process. The
main aim of the study is to develop knowledge that will bridge the existing literature gap. The
research seeks to investigate the impact of social media usage on employee productivity. It is the
objective of the study to establish the social contributing factors that have enhanced employee
productivity in the various business organizations (Archer-Brown & Kietzmann, 2018). The
research will add to the understanding of the different policies adopted by organizations or
businesses to regulate social media usage at the workplace and the effectiveness of the systems
in enhancing the use of social media for employee productivity.
The following research questions will contribute to increased relevance and reliability of
our project. The research questions will also guide the researchers when collecting data from
various participants as well as during fact-finding and evaluation process after data collection.
RQ1. What is the impact of social media usage on organization employee productivity or
performance?

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 5
RQ2. How can employee productivity be improved by use of social networking platforms in an
organization?
RQ3. Are there any social media regulations or policies enacted by the organizations to control
or regulate social media usage in the workplace and what is their impact on employee
productivity?
RQ4. Does social media usage improve employee relationships with customers, their interaction
communication or help in retaining customers?
RQ5. What can be done to strike a balance between social media use for business growth and
employee social behavior?
4.0 Justification and potential Output of the Research project
Employee productivity in any organization is a function of so many factors including
employee attitudes towards work, the company human resource functions towards developing
the interests of the employees, salaries and other benefits, career development, organizational
structure as well as social welfare building activities (Mohamed et al., 2017). Therefore,
employee productivity cannot entirely be determined by their social media usage; however, there
is a healthy relationship between employee use of social media in the workplace and their
productivity. Human beings are social animals and therefore require or have the need to interact
with other people at different times in a day, denying them an opportunity to fulfill that human
desire in them may as well affect their attitudes at the workplace (Khan & Mahapatra, 2017).
Different organizations or businesses have developed social media policies that are aimed at
controlling their employee’s usage of social networking sites during working hours to maximize
on the available working hours (Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). Therefore there is limited research done

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 6
to establish the impact of social media use on employee’s productivity as there are increasing
concerns over reduced employee performance in organizations which have not developed a
social media usage policy. This study will, therefore, focus on the development of social media
concepts in a bid to understand their influence on employee productivity (Syrek et al., 2017). The
research findings will be instrumental in enhancing research development as the findings will be
used for academic research purposes. The research will also contribute to effective decision
making in different organizations concerning social media usage as well as regarding employee
productivity in the organization.
Successful organization and implementation of this project proposal will contribute to
increased efficiency in the organization as it will help the management different organizations to
determine the various social factors which influence the employee performance in order to
develop effective strategies (Aboelmaged, 2018). The research is expected to contribute to
increased understanding of how different organizations can employ the use of various social
media platforms to enhance their business growth strategies. It is supposed to highlight both
negative and positive impacts of social media on employee performance and to the general
organization productivity. The research findings will also present to us with an opportunity to
develop a recommendation on establishment of social media policies at work. Lastly, the results
of the research will also contribute to the development of knowledge on our problem statement.
5.0 Conceptual framework and hypothesis development
Employee productivity in different organizations is significantly influenced by social
media usage at the workplace. However, the impact is depended on the organizational social
media policies and the corporate stand on the usage of social networking platforms by the

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 7
employee during working hours. The growth of social media has improved most business
operations globally with increased connectivity and technological innovations seeking to develop
effective communications and interaction of the company and the existing as well as the potential
customers (Tulu, 2017). Some of the standard and widely used social media platforms in most
organizations and businesses include; Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, YouTube,
LinkedIn Twitter among others. These social media networking sites have millions or even
billions of users and therefore providing a vital business platform to engage diversified groups of
customers (Chung et al., 2017). Employee productivity, on the other hand, is the efforts given by
employees to produce or achieve specific organizational goals and objectives. Therefore it is the
role of every human resource manager and the management of the company to ensure that they
develop strategies which will contribute to increased employee satisfaction to achieve increased
organizational productivity. Social media has been found to significantly impact employee
performance in different organizations either positively or negatively.
Social media has led to increased employee productivity in that it has enabled the
employees to improve their interactions and engagements with the company customers. Through
the social media platforms, the employees can respond to various customers concern as
effectively and even more conveniently for the employees. Communication between employee
and the organization with their customers is very vital in the development of customer loyalty,
customer retention and also contributes to increased opportunities for the customers to refer other
customers to the company (Arora & Tandon, 2017). Social media has provided unique was of
creating brand awareness, brand exposure and marketing and therefore it is critical that every
manager of an organization should seek to establish various social media sites for various
activities by the company (Robertson & Kee, 2017). The employees can use these sites during

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 8
working hours to improve their service delivery to their customers. The sites can be customized
to carry our various functions to enhance business growth and productivity. It also helps the
employees to engage in market research by obtaining the multiple responses from the customers
about a particular brand, and therefore they can analyze the performance and look into what they
did well and what they did not do well. After such analysis, the employees can come with
different solutions to the identified problems and also maximize the positive responses from the
customers. This contributes to increased employee productivity in the company.
Employees are also motivated by other social factors outside the working environments
since they are social beings, some social media activities such as videos, uploads, and
entertainment can be used to change some employee attitudes towards work or even increase
their positive energy needed for everyday performance. Having a positive energy every day at
the workplace contributes to improved performance (Varghese & Kumari, 2018). Employees
could be having some bad day at work and therefore may be in need of other external social
factors to help him, or she regains her morale towards work. This contributes to increased
employee productivity in the workplace and even outside the workplace. However, there is a
need for the organizations to control the time used by the employees on the various social
networking sites. The development of social media usage policies at the workplace is aimed and
regulating the employee from using much of their working time at workplace engaging in social
activities which do not contribute to increased efficiency in service delivery or productivity in
the company (Nduhura & Prieler, 2017). Excess time spent by employees on social media
deprives the organization the ability to fully maximize the available hours to achieve the
organizational goals and objectives. Social media is subject to other non-ethical activities and
can be used against the goodwill of the company. Malicious groups can use the platforms to

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 9
threaten or intimidate the employees or negatively criticize their behavior or conduct and
therefore impact negatively on employee morale towards work. This, in turn, contributes to
decreased employee productivity in the organization. Excessive use of social media by the
employees adds profoundly in making the employees very lazy, social media is addictive and
therefore takes up more of the employee energy which should be used for enhancing their
efficiency at the workplace (CASTRO, 2018). The development of social media regulation
policies at work will contribute to increased employee productivity by striking a balance between
the social media usage for business growth objectives and employee social benefits not related to
work. Such a regulation will provide the employee with the opportunity to access different social
media platforms for business functions at a specified period during practice as well as specific
time periods during breaks for their social activities outside of work.
Hypothesis development
Hypothesis 1 Ho; social media does not impact on employee productivity
Ha; Social media impacts organizational employee performance
Hypothesis 2 Ho; there is no relationship between social media usage in organizations and
employee productivity
Ha; there is as strong relationship between employee productivity and social
media usage
Hypothesis 3 Ho; social media polies and regulations at workplace does not have impact on
employee productivity
Ha; social media policies and regulations contribute to increased employee
productivity

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 10
6.0. Research Design and Methodology
6.1. Research Approach and sources of data
Effective development of this research proposal will comprise of use of both qualitative
and quantitative approaches. A deductive research approach will be the best approach to utilize
in this research as it provides the researcher with an opportunity to investigate the identified
research problem. It also does encourage the researcher to perform the study in a legitimate way
(Lee & Steers, 2017). It is the most appropriate approach to use when using both qualitative and
quantitative data analysis approaches. Positivism philosophy will guide the research as it will
encourage the researcher to develop positive thinking towards the research problem and also
ensures useful analysis of the research problem providing additional information (Longstreet &
Brooks, 2017). Both primary and secondary data will be used in this study whereby the primary
data will be collected from various business owners or organizations as well as from employees
of different organizations through interviews and online surveys. Secondary data will be received
from multiple organization websites, journal articles and employee productivity reports
published by the organization. Descriptive data analysis approach will be sued for analyzing both
the qualitative and quantitative data for useful fact-finding and evaluation.
6.2. Proposed data collection and analysis techniques
Population
The research targets both employees of different organizations and as well as the management of
these organizations. These groups of people will help us gain more insights on our research
problem and will comprise of 100 participants in the research. Information will be collected from

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 11
the through interviews and the findings or results for their responses organized for practical data
analysis.
Sampling
Random sampling will be used in choosing the organizations and employee with which to collect
information or build our study around. This will help us reduce biases in our study which may
result from focusing on specific organization s or groups and therefore affect the reliability of
our research findings.
Variables and Analysis
The objective of this project proposal is to investigate the impact of social media on employee
productivity in business organizations. The independent variable in our case would be social
media usage while the dependent variable will be employee performance or productivity. The
variables will be analyzed by use of both qualitative and quantitative techniques by the use of a
descriptive data analysis approach.
7.0 Organization of the study, proposed Budget and schedule
Chapter one; will provide a detailed research proposal introduction highlighting the overall
overview of the research problem under analysis
Chapter two; a description of social media practices and their impact on employee productivity
in the identified organizations
Chapter Three; provides a detailed research methodology – literature review, data collection
and analysis techniques as well as statistical analysis and data presentation

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Section Four; Provides a report of findings, analysis and possible recommendations to aid in
effective decision making
Chapter Five: provides a summary of relevant research findings and discussion of their
potential implications developing effective strategies to improve active decision making on the
usage of social media at the workplace and contribute to increased employee productivity.
7.1 Budget, Project Activities and Gantt chart
The project proposal will require a small budget for effective management of the research
activities. The research project is estimated to be carried out within three months. The proposed
budget will be used to support the project research activities such as the development of project
literature review and research methodology, for both primary and secondary data collection as
well as for conducting data analysis, presentation and final reporting on the project findings.
Below is a summary of the proposed budget.
Proposed task or activity Estimated Budget per activity
Development of literature review and research
methodology
$ 1500
Data collection ( both primary and secondary
data)
$ 3000
Data analysis, presentation and reporting $ 1500
Total proposed estimated budget $ 6000

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7.2 Project activities and milestone schedules, Gantt table
Proposed activity Starting date Ending date Duration taken
Development of research problem
statement , literature review,
conceptual framework and research
methodology
01/07/2018 15/07/2018 14 days
Primary data collection and
organization
16/07/2018 29/07/2018 14 days
Secondary data collection and
organization
02/08/2018 14/08/2018 14 days
Data evaluation and analysis through
fact finding
16/08/2018 15/09/2018 28 days
Preparation of the final report 16/09/2018 23/09/2018 7 days
Submission of the final report 24/09/2018 30/09/2018 7 days

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA 14
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