The Hand Of Social Media

World war: Social Media and the work place

The aim and scope of this essay is to delineate whether or not employees should be held liable for their individual activity on social media. Thus it will be clarified why one is impartial to the subject at hand because it is open ended and requires effort from both the employer and employee.

Work Ethics Vs Social Life

The advent of social networking has simplified the communication of individuals on a global scale. Furthermore, businesses have caught up with the trend of social networking to; promote products and receive feedback from consumers as well as grievances about products and services. However individual accounts of employees should not be the responsibility of the company therefore an employee should be held responsible for his or her own action separate from the work environment.

“As Facebook and Twitter become as central to workplace conversation as the company cafeteria, federal regulators are ordering employers to scale back policies that limit what workers can say online.” (Associated Press, 2013). The purpose is for a company to retain its untainted image in the public eye. However, Social media policy should be implemented to give workers an overview on what they can and cannot converse or grieve about on social networks. According to Kashmir Hill (2011) if employees have discussed and issue with the manager of that particular company, there should be no consequences presented to what the employee will have to say about the situation. The nature of this logic by Ms. Kashmir Hill, compels one to think that issues driven by personal vendettas aroused in the work environment have repercussions. An example to disambiguate the idea is as follows: Imagine that one is an anchor and the news company one works for, has recently assigned one a new co-anchor and is upstaged by the co-anchor. Later that evening, one tweets “that new anchor has an ego that exceeds the size of the galaxy”.

A rant of jealousy would be considered in excusable Furthermore in responding to a comment or tweet from another individual, an employee can be reprimanded by the claws of a “Vocational paradigm shift” an individual who was subjected to this is meteorologist Rhonda Lee who was fired from KTBS-TV for “defending her ethnic hair” (Knox, 2012) Rhonda had apparently violated the media policy repeatedly which led, ultimately to her termination in KTBS-TV.

Already, it is evident that companies will go to great lengths to maintain their immaculate image especially if the tarnishing is caused by an agent within the company, subsequently leading to the termination of that individuals contract with the company. Therefore, employees should be held responsible for their social activity to a certain extent. Employees should know their “they should not violate the companies media policy and what they speak about does not reflect negatively on the company” (Zandamela, 2013). Both the company and the employee should know where the employee should draw the line where social media is involved.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of both the company (putting its policy in action) and the employee to know when not to cross the line while they social network, in order to avoid the repercussions that could be. An innocent comment could be the reason an individual loses their life within the professional realm.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Phillstar.com. Reinstatement ordered for employees fired from posting on social networks. http://www.philstar.com/2013/01/22/899864/reinstatement-ordered-employees-fired-posting-social-networks.[Accessed 24 February 2013].

Hdtrailerszz. Employee fired over Facebook comments, beware of Employers monitoring your Internet Usage.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCH33TgK8Mw&list=PL19CEC5E12963FC63&index=3.[Accessed 24 February 2013].

Hill, Kashmir. When You Can and Can't Fire Employees For Social Media Misbehavior. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/08/25/when-you-can-and-cant-fire-employees-for-social-media-misbehavior/.[ Accessed 24 February 2013].

Zandamela, N. 2013. Interview. Interviewed by C.Ncube. The Hand of Social Media. CarlosNcube.blogspot.com.

Rosenberg, Sonya. A Tough Balancing Act for Employers. http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534354953.[Accessed 24 February 2013].

Sutyak, Kara. Meteorologist Fired For Responding To Facebook Comment. http://fox8.com/2012/12/12/meteorologist-fired-over-facebook-comments/.[Accessed 24 February 2013].