Report on Using Social Media in the Workplace: BIZ101 Assessment

This report investigates the utilization of social media platforms in the workplace, focusing on its impact on communication strategies within organizations like Bunzl Australasia Ltd. It explores the advantages of social media, such as speed, cost-effectiveness, and relationship building, while also addressing potential disadvantages like reduced face-to-face interaction and confidentiality concerns. The report analyzes the findings through academic sources, offering insights into how employers and employees can leverage social media effectively, considering factors like productivity, employee participation, and the mitigation of risks like bullying. Recommendations are provided to optimize social media use, ensuring improved communication and productivity within the workplace. The report is targeted at employers and students who will use social media to respond to employers’ enquiries or statements. The report also addresses the impact of social media on organizational communication, benefits, and drawbacks of its use, and provides an analysis of findings to guide decision-making. The report also provides recommendations to address dormant participation in social media discussions by providing reliable communication gadgets and internet.

Running Head: USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 1
Using Social Media in the workplace to communicate
Author’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 2
Using Social Media in the workplace to communicate
Introduction
Today, employers use social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Whatsapp Facebook,
LinkedIn, Google +and Pinterest to communicate to their employees. This follows an exploding
growth of social media, and diminishing reliance on verbal communication and decreasing
human contact in the workplace. However, mainly employees would prefer using Twitter and
Facebook to pass on certain information to their employees. Even though some employers find
the use of social media disruptive and subject to abuse, they still have to use it. Social media is
the in thing that a modern organization like Bunzl Plc cannot eliminate from its communication.
In essence, this report seeks to explore use of social media at Bunzl Australasia ltd. The company
deals in a variety of goods such as catering equipment, food packaging, food service, disposable
tableware among other products. This organization is an affiliate of Bunzl Plc, a British company
that mainly offers outsourcing services. In trying to understand use of social media at Bunzl
Australasia ltd, the communication strategy I have chosen is communicating for a response. In
addition, this assignment seeks to address two groups. The first audience being targeted in this
report is employers. Social media can only be used once an employer authorizes it, and therefore
this report addresses employers on how they can leverage this communication platform. The
second audience involves students who will use social media in the work environment to respond
to employers’ enquiries or statement.
Discussion
To explore use of social media at Bunzl Australasia the following headlines will be
explored.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 3
Impact of social media on organization communication
In this case, the focus would be to give an insight into how Social media has
revolutionized organizational communication in a magical way. Indubitably, today, employers
are exploiting social media platforms to communicate with their employees rather than engage
them one on one. It is without a doubt that the exploding growth of this digital technology is
being embraced by a majority of organizations ostensibly to improve their communication with
employees.
Advantages of social media in the workplace
In this section, the focus would be to understand some of possible advantages
contributing to the use of this technology. Employers are adopting social media use in the
workplace because of its advantages. Some of the most notable advantages of using social media
include: very fast and reliable, more informal, allows employees to ask questions and find
solutions, It builds relationships since it allows employees to network, it is easy to use and cost-
effective to a majority of employers, appealing to tech-savvy employees and bolsters
transparency (Aguenza et al.,2012).
Disadvantages of use of social media in the workplace
Use of social media has its own downsides that sometimes scare some employers from
using it. In the event an organization uses a social site like Facebook to communicate with its
employees, it is most likely some would not feel comfortable with such a platform (SHRM,
2016). Ideally, the most notable disadvantages of using social in the workplace include, only
appeals to a section of employees who are tech-savvy, diminishes face to face communication,

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 4
lack of participation, can result in bullying, loss of and confidentiality (Munene, & Nyaribo,
2013).
Analysis of findings
This section would allow me to synthesize and put to the right perspective how social
media impacts communication in the workplace. This section will be backed by some academic
resources. This section would give an in-depth view of how employers should view social media.
Organizations may be pleased to use social media because it is critical to better understand it.
Understanding social media communication would help especially managers identify the
appropriate channel to use depending on type of message to be delivered (Jeanetta, 2017).
Therefore, in my analysis I will use the following sources to dig into why organization should
adopt social media use in their workplace. Also, these sources would help employees make
proper decisions on how to communicate using social media.
Source 1.
Name: Social media and productivity in the workplace: Challenges and constraints.
Type: Journal article
Relevance: This resource is important because it underscores its impact on productivity in the
workplace. This resources helps the audience reflect on social media is likely to influence their
performance. Generally, social media is believed to influence performance of employees. This
article offers a context for which one can understand how social media impacts productivity.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 5
Reliability: The split-half reliability shows that there is a correlation between two variables that
is productivity and social media.
Test and retest reliability: This source is reliable because it can be tested and retested.
Source 2.
Name: Effect of social media pertication in the workplace on employee productivity.
Type: Journal Article
Relevance: Similarly, this resource is relevant to the report because it also discusses the
likely effect of social media on the performance of an employee. This article has enough
information that can be used to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using social media
in the workplace to communicate.
Reliability: It is reliable because it can be subjected to test and retest.
Source 3:
Name: Managing and leveraging workplace use of social media
Reliability: This source is reliable because it supports split-half test reliability.
Type: Website
Relevance: The reference is relevant because it shares information of how employer can
manage social media in the workplace. It is also relevant because it gives information of how an
organization can utilize social media to achieve its goals.
Source 4:

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 6
Name: 7 Reasons why social media in the workplace can help employees.
Type: Website
Relevance: This resource is also relevant since it shares justifications for adopting social
media in the workplace. The seven reasons are logically explained and they offer an insight into
the role social media used to communicate in the workplace. In essence, this article justifies
reasonably, why employers consider worth using social media to communicate with their
employees.
Reliability: This source is reliable because it has internal consistency
Conclusion
In the conclusion, the report will answer how Bunzl is going to benefit from use of social
media in its workplace. The advantages outlined in this report will inform why the company
should embrace social media. Also, there is a question on how social media can be disruptive and
reduce productivity. Other questions will focus on how to reduce bullying and enhance
confidentiality in social media use.
Recommendations
It is recommended that this report addresses minimization of dormant participation in
social media discussions by providing reliable communication gadgets and internet.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE TO COMMUNICATE 7
References
Aguenza, B. B., Al-Kassem, A. H., & Som, A. M. (2012). Social media and productivity in the
workplace: Challenges and constraints. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in
Business, 2(2), 22-26. Retrieved from:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2675/378a78c682793b8e9ff235be302b88051233.pdf
Jeanetta, T. (April 25, 2017). 7 Reasons why social media in the workplace can help employees.
Theolson group.https://theolsongroup.com/5-reasons-social-media-workplace-can-help-
employees/
Munene, A. G., & Nyaribo, Y. M. (2013). Effect of social media pertication in the workplace on
employee productivity. International Journal of Advances in Management and
Economics, 2(2), 141-150.
SHRM. (Jan 19, 2016).Managing and leveraging workplace use of social media. SHRM.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/
managingsocialmedia.aspx

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https://medium.com/kraft-designsmiths/the-3-main-types-of-communication-strategies-208dd9b60372