The Ethical Practice of Using Social Media to Monitor Employees

Running Head: Ethical Practices of Monitoring Employees

The Ethical Practice of using Social Media to monitor Employees

By: Clarissa Idos

Florida State College at Jacksonville

Table of Contents

Abstract3

Impact of Ethics in Communication 3

Great Impacts on Productivity4

Poor impacts on Productivity4

Importance of Ethics in Business5

Rightly Impacted5

Wrongly Impacted5

Discussion6

Conclusion6

References7-8

Abstract

In today’s world, there are a multitude of ways for people to stay interconnected with each other through the use of technological devices such as e-mail, messenger, texting, calling and Social Media. The main form of communication within the workplace is through e-mail, in which employers have the ability to address a specific candidate or the whole organization. With the daily advancements of technology, communication through Social Media has skyrocketed and according to eMarketer.com “Approximately 2.34 billion people, or 32.0% of the global population and 68.3% of internet users, will access a social network regularly in 2016, up 9.2% from 2015”. Social media is an occurrence that has transformed the interaction and communication individuals across the globe, specifically in business. Considering the circumstances, it is ethical for Business’s to monitor employee’s usage of Social media in order to uphold productivity, retain a positive company image and bring in more net profits to the organization.

Impacts of Ethics on Communication

        According to Kroll, “Communications on employee-owned systems can be held to a higher standard of monitoring”. The Millennial individuals are likely to send e-mail or instant messages to coworkers as normal communication with colleagues, however different generations can perceive this as a nuisance. For example, Generation X is likely to see this as "disruptive and inconsistent with the way employees usually do work (Jerome, Whithem, Quain, 2014). When coworkers are able to communicate with other colleagues as quickly as possible, it gives them time to finish other tasks. Older generations do not think it is ethical to communicate via messaging systems but fail to realize the upsides that these platforms rev up coworkers to create new and improved ideas together. The use of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Yammer) in enterprises has been shown to impact information sharing, collaboration, communication, and interpersonal connectivity in the workplace (Choudhury, 2013).

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