Social Media Impact on Employee & Org Performance: BCO 6653 - MIT

This report critically analyzes the impact of social media on employee performance and organizational competencies, using Ego Pharmaceuticals as a case study. It reviews existing literature, examines current business practices, and compares them to theoretical findings. The report highlights both positive and negative impacts of social media, including its role in communication, collaboration, productivity, and potential risks like malware and decreased employee relations. It emphasizes the importance of social media policies to protect company image and confidential information. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the need for organizations to carefully manage social media use to maximize its benefits while minimizing its drawbacks.

BCO 6653 -MIT Ass 1
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Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Literature review....................................................................................................................4
Current Analysis.....................................................................................................................6
Comparison: Literature and Current Practice.......................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12
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Abstract
In this assessment, there is the discussion about the impact of social media in the performance
for the employees and the organisation. In this assessment, a critical analysis is performed on
the social media impact on the organisation and performance of the employee. After that,
there is the analysis of the current practices is done in this assessment. The assessment
provides deep insight into the topic that is discussed. Relevant data is used in this assessment
that makes this assessment informative in nature. The data has strictly matched the topic
which is being discussed in this assessment. The current practices that are present in the
business market in a context of the social media that are impacting on the performance of the
employee and organisational competencies are understood in this assessment. After that, a
conclusion is written for this assessment. For the better analysis of the assessment, ego
pharmaceuticals are the organisation which is considered as an example of the study. This
company is headquartered in Australia. This is the pharmaceuticals company that used to
provide skin care products. Relevant references and data sources are included in this
assessment that makes the whole report genuine.
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Introduction
There is a great impact of social media on the performance of the employees and
Organisation. Social media is helping the employees of the different organisations in
communicating effectively. Social media is the network by which the employees of the
particular organisation can present their innovative idea to the senior level officials of the
organisation (Dawson, 2017). A social network is helping in easy decision making by taking
the suggestions from the employee on social network group of the particular organisation. If
the particular person is busy in the organisational work and not able to attend the orientation
or the particular meeting then that particular person can know about orientation all the
meeting with the help of information present on social media group (Fulk & Connie Yuan,
2017). Therefore it is the mode of communication that can be used by the particular employee
24/7. Different organisations get different customers feedback (Etter, et. al., 2017). These
feedbacks can be presented on the social network to the employees of the organisation. This
is helping in taking the constructive images on the feedbacks the suggestions of employees on
social network group of the particular organisation.
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Literature review
The emergence of social media applications and platforms is making opportunities for the
business organisations and corporations to encourage and promote the collaboration
between employees and to increases the engagement of employees. Social media applications
give employees an easy method to communicate and share the professional and personal
information with other members of the organisations. A number of researches were
conducted to explore the importance and approach of technical side of social media but a
small research was conducted to explore the potential and enhance the performance of
organisation by more powerful workers (Charoensukmongkol, 2014)In this, there is an
exploration of relationship between the social media usage and engagement of employee
within the multinational organisation. The relationship between the purpose and level o social
media and wide self reported competencies are also explored.
There is large debate on the topic of impact of social media on performance of employees and
competency of organisation. Some of the organisation has positive approach about this
impact and others are very concerned about the declining performance of employees due to
this technology. The use of social media is increased day by day across the organisation,
managers and executives to get the power of knowledge and information that present in the
companies. Social media is very important for the organisation like telephone and email.
The potential impact of social media is used in four different sectors such as consumer
packaged goods; advanced manufacturing, retail financial services and professional services.
As per the research and survey, the technology of social media created value by increasing
the productivity across the world, and potentially contribute the $900 million to $1.3 trillion
in annual values in four sectors (Ainin, et. al., 2015). The social media supports
communication, increasing collaboration, promoting relationships among the colleagues and
increasing the organisation and individual knowledge base. The major advantages are leads
motivation, lower cost, high morale, reduced turnover, and high productivity. Some of the
reasons that shows the impact of social media on employee performance:
Permit employees to take mental break: Employees use social media which makes very
easy to complete the task takes a break from the work is not like that can be discouraged.
Many employers are already encouraged to employees to give the small break at the time of
working.
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Enable employees to make professional connections: With the help of social media,
employees can increase the professional relationship with people outside the organisation.
Then such relationships can increase the opportunities that are not available. With the more
connection, employment interest, sales heads new ideas, business opportunities.
Employees ask questions and get the solution of work problem: Social media helps
employees in dealing with the difficult problem of organisation. If there is an issues that can’t
be solved then social media is the best option. Several best solutions are received from the
use of social media when none of the answers are used to solve the issue, because sometimes
outside perspectives are required and social media is one of the methods to get multiple
perspectives, in easy and quick manner (Ngai, et. al., 2015).
Improve employee’s retention and recognition: Social media is one of the methods to
recognise the accomplishments for employees, both externally and internally. By the social
media company can provide recognition to awesome performance, new hires and work
anniversaries (Ngai, et. al., 2015).This interaction and recognition ability, social media
improves the morale of employees, the person who are engaged with the firm and co workers
are very likely to stay in the business
Boost productivity of organisation: Social media increases the productivity of company. As
per the conduct of research 72% of companies uses the social media but nay of them are not
uses with full potential. As per the research of companies fully execute the social media it
will improve the productivity of employee by more than 25 percent.
Increases information delivery and discovery: Employees use social media as method
communication to deliver and discover the job related information. At workplace, social
media is other avenue for workers to search the information which is relevant to the job and
discover new job information which they can apply.
Improves personal relationship with co workers: Co workers use the technology of social
media to interact with each other and build better relationship with them. A strong
relationship among employees increases to productive and cohesive team work (White, 2014)
This is the easy method to encourage the communication of employees and to help and
support the share ideas and improves the engagement at home and work
Beating the competition: A pharmaceutical company beat the level of competition by
coming with ne unique differ marketing strategies and campaigns. By this platform the
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research on the competitive strategies and methods with different manners of marketing and
advertising of the products are described. The best point is this technology o social media is
cost effective.
Disseminating fast information: The technology of social media is possible for every person
to provide regular information effectively and easily. It is well advertised that, important
information of the business reached as many people in minimum time, by this profitability
and sales of the company is increased at large.
Acknowledge the client’s needs: by the response of existing and potential clients on social
media, so clients will not purchase the products but also gibes some feedbacks to be added in
the product of company (White, 2014) A wise business man will collect and consider such
information for the better growth and development of company
Organizational competencies: This is a concept which is related to wider range of person
capabilities related with the specialization, craftsmanship, problem solving and intelligence.
One of the challenge is defined in organisational competencies are action and knowledge at
the same time. Organisational competencies are divided into four perspectives:
 specific phenomena and related disciplines
 functional skills
 integration of skill and technology
 technology like printing, computing, internal combustion and its related products
Some negative impacts of the social media on business performance and organisation
competency:
As per the research and conduct of survey it is analysed that due to more use of social media
technology potentially affects the work productivity and performance of the company. It can
also many employees faced several problems with the use of social media and abuse of
internet access in personal and professional reasons; some of the negative points are as
follows:
High risk of malware: This is the major disadvantage of possibility for company network to
be exposed to malware. Hacker’s cam commits and spam fraud by some media platforms. It
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is very dangerous for the business that potentially damages the networks and systems of
computer by breaking the security and corrupts the essential files (Roth, et. al., 2016)
Technical support team of the company is responsible to act their best to protect the system of
malware
Harms employee productivity: As per the research report, an organisation that allows its
employees to use the Face book at the organisation level loses the 1.5%of its productivity.
Employees are distracted by checking the twitter and Face book for photos, status updates,
chat with family and friends, profiles etc. instead of focusing on the work at organisation.
Employees can also access the social networking sites for the organisation related activities;
distractions affect the profitability and productivity of company.
Decreased employee relations: It was discussed earlier that interactions improves with the
social media but this is not happened all the time. This technology s used for communication
but it hurts the relations among employee (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). Cyber bullying
is the major problem in this today world; co workers within the organisation harass and
deliver wrong messages to each other t hinder the collaboration and teamwork. This is wrong
that people are posting their daily life routines, ups and down on social media which creates
hurdles for the workers in the organisation.
Company image and confidentiality: Permitting employees to access the technology of
social media at workplace, creates the organisation more vulnerable to potential break the
confidentiality among the organisation in possible manner. Sometimes staff and employees of
the company posted new updates and tweets related to the promotion of new business
strategies and technology which the company is not ready to launch that time (Sigala and
Chalkiti, 2015). Regular leaks of information will be a common problem for the company
and this is a common problem by sharing the secret information with the wrong person on
social media and websites. When policies are creating and executing by the company for
social media it will consider all the benefits and drawbacks at the time of employment level
of employees. So there is a need to make clear guideline for the staff and employees of the
organisation to proper use of the technology and to protect the image and secret information
of the company at large.
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Current Analysis
In today’s digital world, social media plays an essential role in the business environment as
well. Companies or the organisations like Ego Pharmaceuticals have become more careful
about its productivity or performance which can be acquired by making effective use of
social media. It can also be said social media have brought changes in the attitude and
behavior of the employees (Fuchs, 2017). It has been found that an average person spends
almost two hours of his time on social media. It provides a unique platform to the companies
for making promotion about the services or the products provided by the company to the
public at large. This helps the companies to maintain the advantage over its competitor and
expand its business to other parts of the world.
Performance of Employees: There have been various debates on the social media and its
impact on the performance of the employees. Some say that it has reduced the performance of
the employees whereas some say that it motivates the employees to work more effectively
which improve their performance. Increase in use of social media has modified the
atmosphere at the place of employment i.e. the workplace culture. It has been noted that
social media has an impact on the performance of the workforce i.e. the employees of the
companies. While various companies like Ego Pharmaceuticals having apprehensiveness are
reduced in the recent period of times, various companies are still struggling to provide
official access to the social media during the working hours (Hodge, 2018). Due to easy
availability of internet and device proliferation, most of the companies have passed policies,
rules, and regulations in regards to use of social media in the controlled and acceptable
environment. In the absence of the policies, this may result in fall in the productivity rate of
the employees as social media is considered as a place that has various things for the
entertainment of an individual which captures the attention of such individual which will
result in wastage of time and this will hamper the performance of the employees which
ultimately affects the organisation. At the same time, it is necessary for the employees that
are working continuously or for too long to take a break for making their mind fresh so that
they can perform their work again which same effectiveness and efficiency. In a study, it has
been found that most of the employees, for taking a mental break from work make use of
social media. Various employees of Ego Pharmaceuticals also do the same. It is considered
appropriate unless that break is too long; otherwise, it affects the performance of such
employee. There are various blogs, journals which provides information regarding different
methods or techniques which can be adopted by the employees for enhancing their
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performance. Sometimes, there are various issues faced or suffered by the employees at the
place of employment, the companies or the management of the companies are unable to take
care of various employees or taking interest in the employee as an individual. This makes the
employees feel that their voice are not being heard at the place of employment. In this
regards, various companies have established a platform of internal social media which
empowers such employees whose voice are not heard. By such establishment, most of the
grievances of the employees are solved as they can communicate with the management on
such platform.
Competency of Companies: Social media is necessary for operating and day to day
activities of the company. It provides the company a global platform to reach to the global
population and expand its business and related activities. Through social media, companies
can promote the products or the services provided by it and creating awareness about the use
and benefits of the products and services which is necessary for the companies like Ego
Pharmaceuticals and eventually increase the revenues of the company. In the recent times, it
has been seen that companies are logging in more on the social media with the aim of its
publicity. It allows the company to connect to more and more consumers, taking their
opinions for the products, which allows the company to learn more about the current trends in
the market and demands of the consumer at large. Moreover, the grievances or the issues of
the consumer can also be solved through social media. However, it is necessary that the
person which authority to handle the social account of the company must have the experience
to handle the social accounts and must know what is to be posted on social media. If the
content is inappropriate, it will affect the image and goodwill of the company in the market.
Communication is the main key for the smooth running of the functions and the operations of
the business both, inside and outside the company (Delerue and Sicotte, 2017). As mentioned
above, the establishment of internal social media helps the company as it also enhances the
communication of a company. Effective communication helps the company to work as per
the developed plans which will lead to accomplishing the goals of the company can maintain
the competency amongst its competition.
It has been discovered that the human resource department or the recruitment teams largely
rely on social media. This provides the organisation to reach out various professionals at a
global level and choosing from the most suitable individual for the job otherwise company
have to select from limited professionals that may or may not be suitable for the job.
Recruiting the best employee is essential for the company as operations of the company and
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other related tasks are performed by such employee (Murray, 2017). It has also been seen
Ego Pharmaceuticals have also adopted this method of recruitment for getting the
experienced and skilled professionals or employees.
Social media also provide information regarding the competitors and its products and services
that are circulated in the market. The company, through such information, can make
alterations in the plans or set the prices of the products and services in such a way which
doesn’t affect the sales of the company and will not hamper the position of the company in
the market (Tuten and Solomon, 2017). Various companies including Ego Pharmaceuticals
modify its strategies on the basis of the information of its competitors after making sure about
the reliability and authenticity of such information.
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