Impact of Social Media on Workforce: Engagement and Performance

This report investigates the multifaceted impact of social media on the modern workforce, examining its influence on employee engagement and overall performance. It delves into how social media platforms have become integral communication tools, affecting both positive and negative interactions within the workplace. The report highlights the benefits of social media for internal communication while also addressing the pitfalls of casual communication, potential damage to professional hierarchies, and the risks of misuse. Furthermore, it explores the critical link between employee engagement and performance, emphasizing the detrimental effects of social media addiction and the measures businesses are taking, such as blocking access to social media sites and implementing smartphone policies. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of monitoring and managing social media access to ensure a positive impact on business outcomes and maintain employee productivity.

8/19/2017
Student Name
The Impact of the Social Media on The Workforce

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
How Social Media Influences Employee Engagement?..................................................................1
What Influence Does Employee Engagement Have On Employee Performance?.........................2
High Engagement Drives Growth................................................................................................2
Social Media Addiction and Blocking Access to Social Media Sites......................................2
Banning of Smartphones at Work............................................................................................2
What Is The Influence Of Social Media On Employee Performance?............................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................3

Introduction
The past decade has seen a major increase in the number of people using the social media both
for personal and professional use. Today the social media is accessed by more people than most
major search engines like Google due to the social media delivering live feeds and updates
among family and friend groups (Association, 2015). This has also had a major impact towards
influencing employees at the workplace both negatively and positively requiring businesses to
manage how social media is access and used by the workforce. This report shall discuss on three
areas in which social media has had a direct impact on the workforce and make
recommendations on how those areas can be resolved.
How Social Media Influences Employee Engagement?
Social media has become an important communication tool among most people and communities
today and rather than call or write a letter, many people find themselves communicating with
friends and family directly on social media streams, feeds and pages (Burke & Martin, 2016).
This is also happening among employees who have opened certain social media communities on
smartphone applications such as watts app which allows employees to create groups in which
individual members can post messages to the entire group. This form of communication can be
identified to have many benefits when observed from a professional perspective as it helps
communicate a single message across to the entire group at once but it’s important to also note
there are negative effects which must also be highlighted. Similar to other forms of social media
communication direct one to one communication is lost which results in certain employees
losing the ability to maintain their professional communication required in business (Jue, Marr,
& Kassotakis, 2009). The social media tends to promote casual communication among group
members which results in severing the seniority and hierarchy orderly communication which
must exist among business and company employees at all time. If over uses the social media
platforms are likely to damage employee communications which would result in promoting
conflict among the employees who can also turn and use the social media platform to publish
their negative remarks related to a certain member of a group to the entire group. This is due to

the social media groups having live feeds to all groups’ members which also open up the
possibility to misuse the social media platform.
Influence of Employee Engagement on Employee Performance?
Employee engagement amongst colleagues, seniors, and the customer also has a direct effect on
their performance making it important to manage social media international on a professional
manner (Mone & London, 2014).
High Engagement Drives Growth
It is well-known that High Engagement in work Drives Growth but High Engagement in social
media Does Not Drive Growth making it important for social media access and use require
proper management among employees at the workplace to prevent hampering their performance
(Maylett & Warner, 2014). The social media has been identified to be a useful tool among
business for marketing and communication but when unmanaged the social media websites and
communication platforms can turn to being a major hindrance that hampers growth and
performance.
Social Media Addiction and Blocking Access to Social Media Sites
The Social Media is highly addictive which has resulted in affecting many employees
performance directly. As a result, it’s common to find that many businesses and offices today
have blocked access to social media websites through the business computers (Lipschultz, 2017).
This is due to many people abandoning their daily responsibility to engage in social media gossip
and talk which affects the businesses performance in a negative manner. Today most businesses
have blocked computer browsers from accessing most social media websites but this has not
helped stop the problem from persisting.
Banning of Smartphones at Work
The negative influence of social media on employee performance would quickly see the adoption
of powerful smartphones by employees at the workplace. This would again see employee
performance reducing due to many over indulging in the social media which has again forced
much business to develop smartphone policies that restrict the use or access of smartphones
during office hours (Guerin, 2017). This was necessary due to smartphones delivering freedom
to the employee to access their favourite social media website which acted as a distraction while

working resulting in the personal smartphones being banned altogether by many businesses.
Businesses which depend on smartphones have issued their employees with smartphones but the
handset has been installed with MDM software which delivers access and control of the
smartphone to the IT department who can control how the smartphone is used and what it
accesses thus helping boost performance.
What Is The Influence Of Social Media On Employee Performance?
The social media has been identified to be a very important networking tool which has helped
many individuals and business develop strong business ties but at the same time, the social media
has also had negative effects to toward employee performance. It is rare to find an employee
using the social media to build networks and advertise and in 99% of the situations employees
use it to communicate and share their images and other information. This has resulted in
delivering continuous access to gossip and unproductive information on social media websites
which employee’s access unmanaged (Aiken, 2016). Social media is there for largely classified
as having a negative effect on Employee performance resulting businesses banning access to the
social media websites as well as smartphones during office hours. The main influence related to
the social media is its tendency to be very addictive which results in most people developing a
keen interest in monitoring progress on the social media website rather than focus on their work.
Conclusion
The social media has been identified to have many benefits towards business marketing and sales
but it has had a majority of negative effects on employee performance. This makes it important
for business and individuals to monitor and manage social media access so as to ensure it
delivering a positive effect on the business and not diminishing employee performance.
References:
Aiken, M. (2016). The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human
Behaviour Changes Online. London: Hachette UK.

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Guerin, L. (2017). Smart Policies for Workplace Technologies: Email, Social Media, Cell
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Lipschultz, J. (2017). Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics.
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Maylett, T., & Warner, P. (2014). MAGIC: Five Keys to Unlock the Power of Employee
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Mone, E., & London, M. (2014). Employee Engagement Through Effective Performance
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