Critical Thinking in Management: Social Media Ban in Woolworths Report

This report delves into the critical analysis of banning social media in the workplace as an HR practice, specifically within the context of Woolworths. The study highlights the negative impact of social media usage on employee productivity, concentration, and the potential risks to company data and employee relations. The report emphasizes the importance of restricting social media to maximize employee focus, protect sensitive business information, and foster a positive work environment. The report recommends the implementation of clear guidelines, strict policies, and employee motivation strategies to minimize social media use. The conclusion reinforces the need for a social media ban to enhance overall organizational performance, particularly for large retail companies like Woolworths, and references several studies that support the arguments.

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING IN MANAGEMENT
Critical Thinking in Management
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Executive Summary
This current report consists of an overview of the banning of social media practice in the
workplace as an HR practice. However, the rapid use of the social media in the workplace by
employees will hamper the productivity of the business and the performance level of the
employees. However, it has been received that in the context of Woolworths it is crucial for such
organization to ban the social media application in their workplace. This HR practice will be
beneficial for such organization to maximize their productivity, build employee relation and to
protect the business information

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Brief discussion of the organization................................................................................................4
Discussion of banning of social media in the workplace in context of Woolworths......................5
Significance of the banning of social media in context of Woolworths..........................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Ways to implement the recommendations.......................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Use of social media in the workplace causes vital issues on the work. This process
decreases the concentration of the employees during their work. According to the several types
of research, it has been observed that use of social media application for the personal use of the
employees during their work may affect their performance level (Kumar, Choi and Greene
2017). The productivity of the employees can be damaged for the personal use of social media in
the workplace. Therefore, rapid application of the social media increases the risk of malware.
This study deals with the banning of social media as the HR practice and its importance in the
workplace.
Brief discussion of the organization
Woolworths Limited is a well known Australian supermarket with extensive retail
interest. This organization operates their business all over the Australia and New Zealand.
According to the sales revenue, this organization has occupied the second largest position in the
Australia (woolworths.com.au 2017). Woolworths offers quality products at low price including
food, clothes and other household products. This organization is established in 1931 in Perth of
Australia. This organization focuses on the employee benefit and customer value. Therefore,
their technology is advanced and they include dynamic thinking regarding their business.
Providing fresh food products to the customers is their main business aim. In the present years,
Woolworths operates 100 stores in the Australia and 968 supermarkets. This ensures their
growing business and sales revenue in Australian supermarket segments.

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Discussion of banning of social media in the workplace in context of Woolworths
Application of the social media for the product promotion is a relevant practice for every
business organization while personal use of the social media in the workplace will hamper the
productivity of the employees (Fuchs 2017). Hence, among the many practices, restricted use of
the social media in the workplace should be a major HR practice in the Woolworths. According
to the statistical data approx 32% time of the total working hour can be destroyed for the
personal use of social media in the workplace. This gives a clear indication of the huge loss of
productivity and the official resources. Hence, by banning the social media use in the workplace
will lead the HR to maximize the concentration of the employees towards their work that will
lead the organization towards the increased profitability.
This HR practice will be beneficial for Woolworths Ltd. Therefore, the confidentiality of
the company information often disclosed through the use of social media in the workplace.
Hence, the restriction in the use of social media in the workplace will lead the management
secure the company data. Banning of social media as the HR practice in the workplace maintains
the good employee relationship with an organization (Carr 2017). On the other hand application
of social media like Facebook, Twitter will enable the employees to promote the business while
personal use of these media during the working hour may affect work and the productivity of the
organization. Restricted use of the social media as an HR practice will enable an organization to
resist their employees to show any illegal or unauthentic activity regarding the organization.
Significance of the banning of social media in context of Woolworths
Woolworths is a popular retail sector in Australia hence, to improve their brand image
they use social media activity in their business. However, this is a good approach for this

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organization to improve their product promotion while it may affect their productivity. However,
the employees are often busy to use the social media applications during the work for the
business purpose. Therefore, for this reason, they often use the social media for their personal
entertainment and refreshment in the workplace which hampers their performance (Crawford and
Gillespie 2016). Hence, in order to maximize the productivity and concentration of the
employees, Woolworths needs to prohibit the use of social media in the workplace. On the other
hand, often the employees share their bad experience in an organization on their social media
website that leaves a negative impact on the brand image of the organization (Robertson and Kee
2017). For this reason, the HRM of the Woolworths needs to ban the use of social media in the
workplace. Therefore, in order to maintain the good relationship between the employees and
management use of social media in the workplace should be restricted.
Apart from this breach of confidentiality about the company information can be occurred
for the rapid use of social media in the workplace. However, Woolworths is a popular
organization thus to keep its business information confidential the HRM needs to incorporate
banning of the use of social media in the workplace (Christina, Stefan and Markus 2016).
Therefore, the error occurs in the work of the employees of Woolworths while using social
media in the workplace. Thus it is important for such organization to prohibit the social media
use in their corporate organization.
Recommendations
Rapid application of the social media should be discarded from the workplace to
maximize the productivity (Miranda, Young and Yetgin 2016). Hence by providing proper
knowledge to the employees, Woolworths will be able to minimize the use of social media

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application in the workplace. Therefore, employee motivation regarding the banning of social
media application in the workplace will be beneficial for such organization to prohibit the use of
social media.
Ways to implement the recommendations
Providing proper guideline about the harmful effect of the use of social media in the
workplace to the employees will be a good approach for Woolworths to resist the employees
from using it (Carr 2017). Therefore, implementation of strict policies in the workplace
regarding the banning of the use of social media will be an effective way for such organization to
stop the use of social media. Moreover, offering the financial and non-financial reward based on
the performance of the employees will motivate the employees to minimize the use of social
media in the workplace.
Conclusion
The entire piece of the study focuses on the banning of social media in the workplace as
an HR practice. This should be applicable for Woolworths as it is a large organization of
Australia and use social media for their business promotion. For this reason, this organization
needs to make restriction about the use of social media in the workplace in order to maximize
their productivity and to protect the company information. Therefore, by providing knowledge to
the employees about the negative impact of the social media application during work is a good
approach to inhibit such process.

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References
Carr, P., 2017. Whole Enterprise Social Media for Business Performance. In Phantom Ex
Machina (pp. 25-35). Springer International Publishing.
Christina, S., Stefan, T. and Markus, M., 2016, January. Protecting Knowledge in the Financial
Sector: An Analysis of Knowledge Risks Arising from Social Media. In System Sciences
(HICSS), 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 4031-4040). IEEE.
Crawford, K. and Gillespie, T., 2016. What is a flag for? Social media reporting tools and the
vocabulary of complaint. New Media & Society, 18(3), pp.410-428.
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Kumar, V., Choi, J.B. and Greene, M., 2017. Synergistic effects of social media and traditional
marketing on brand sales: capturing the time-varying effects. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 45(2), pp.268-288.
Miranda, S.M., Young, A. and Yetgin, E., 2016. Are social media emancipatory or hegemonic?
Societal effects of mass media digitization. MIS Quarterly, 40(2), pp.303-329.
Robertson, B.W. and Kee, K.F., 2017. Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction,
employment status, and Facebook use with co-workers. Computers in Human Behavior, 70,
pp.191-196.
Woolworths.com.au. 2017. Woolworths. [online] Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/
[Accessed 1 Sep. 2017].