Social Media and Privacy
Published on Jun 10, 2019
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Overview
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This presentation has been designed to carefully point out how employers may violate employee rights regarding social media. I will discuss all points to where employees are feeling as though their privacy has been compromised and what it means for employers.
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Social Media
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Social media has been designed to give everyone around the world a way to connect to others through different platforms using computers, cell phones, and tablets. These platforms all different but yet serve significant similarity of giving people a way to express themselves freely, connect with others around the world, build a business, and so much more. Social media has defined the age in time which we call to be the digital age where everything is connected through some form of technology. With technology being so advanced and rapidly changing as well as growing, most social media platforms have transformed and created a new form of communication methods for both personal and organizational gain. Each social media site being different Facebook is more commonly known and used by many around the world, with over 800 million users in 2011, Facebook has become one of the most popular social media sites (Mello, J. A., 2012).
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Employee Usage
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Employees have used social media in several ways that allow them to express and communicate freely with other people. The way they express themselves whether it be through a personal blog, their opinion on a post, or sending out a message to a network of friends to meet up, social media personal usage is far more than what the companies intend to do with it. Personal blogs, social media profiles, Tweets, and other online fora allow individuals to publicly express multiple facets of themselves, including their private lives and their opinions (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A., 2012). A lot of people say that you should be aware of what you post before posting it and decide whether your employer would be ok with it or if you would be causing them a bad reputation.
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Companies had started out saying that Social media was a negative thing and it wasn't really what they thought it would be but then they saw an opportunity to grow using social media for company gain. These companies started to use social media for all different purposes such as promotional, alternative ways of communication to clients and potential clients, and also recruiting new employees. Sites such as LinkedIn created a way for recruiters for employers to go online find a candidate for a position and connect with them seeing if they are interested and getting to know them better before interviewing them or offering a job to them (Mello, J. A., 2012).
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When it comes to employees and their jobs some places like to explore the social media pages of their employees so that they can monitor or see how that employee may conduct themselves outside of the job place. There are three pressing legal issues regarding social media within employee context. Employer monitoring and surveillance of employee speech in social media profiles, Employer evaluation of the speech of applicants in making hiring decisions, and employer imposed limitations on employees off duty social media networking activities (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A., 2012).
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Employers Monitoring Social Media usage
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There are several employers that watch and monitor the usage of social media in the workplace with their employees because they have the right to do so when employees are on company time. The companies monitor everything an employee does when on company devices such as websites accessed down to emails sent and received (Mello, J. A., 2012). This is to protect the company from any liabilities of an employee’s actions on company time or using a company device to publicly or what they would think is privately express how they feel about anything; it doesn't have to be directly about work or what's going on in the office. Monitoring employee’s social media usage prevents legal liabilities for companies due to the employee (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A., 2012). employees are working while a work and which are just doing whatever they feel like on the clock.
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It's important for Employers to keep a good reputation in the public eye so monitoring social media usage and activity on company devices help to do so, there are often times when employees become frustrated with work and take to social media to express how they feel. A disgruntled employee is the worst liability so monitoring them can help save the company from being tarnished publicly by that employee making clients new and old look at them differently. The process of monitoring employees also helps to determine which employees are working while a work and which are just doing whatever they feel like on the clock.
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Employee Privacy
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has attempted to bring employers’ restrictions of employees’ off-duty speech and conduct under the purview of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A.,2012). The NLRA has stated that union and non-union employees have the right to self-organization and to “engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or mutual aid or protection (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A.,2012). This law prohibits employers from doing anything that could affect employees negatively should they decide to interact or engage in these activities outside of the workplace or using their own devices. U.S. law emphasizes that the workplace and its resources are the property of the employer. The employer is generally free to dictate permissible use of company property as the employer sees fit (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A.,2012).
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Even though our fourth amendment right in the U.S. is “be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” and protects them against “unreasonable searches and seizures", employers still try to find a way around that to view or make changes to employee positions or responsibilities due to what they post on social media.
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Pros of Social Media
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There are pros of Social Media for employers allowing them the ability to explore different avenues and grow the company more. Looking at the pages of employee's social media help you find out more about current and potential employees. Being able to access their profiles allows companies more insight into the moral compass of a person outside of work. It also can help to uncover an obvious flaw in an employee’s background or character which could lead to negligent hiring and negligent retention lawsuits or malpractice claims having serious business repercussions (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A.,2012). Social media can be used as a platform for employees to stay connected avoiding any overhead expenses for a company as wells as help promote and develop new products for a company (Mello, J. A.,2012).
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Cons of Social Media
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The cons of Social Media for employers are that it creates an ethical dilemma of whether the usage of social media is actually proper to do regarding the hiring process (Mello, J. A.,2012). It has a negative effect on employees who fr3equent on social media as an escape from reality. When being monitored they tend to stress more and that can lead to health issues such as stress, lower productivity in the workplace, and depreciates employee morale. These “boundary-crossing” technologies blur the already elusive line between the private and the public, the home and the workplace (Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A.,2012).
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I believe that going forward employers are still going to monitor or view employee social media just what they do see on the pages of the employees shouldn't necessarily hinder their position or take away from what they do at work. Even in the hiring process looking at social media of potential employees should not be a determining factor on whether the person will get the job or not because social media has been created to use as a form of expression on different topics and give your opinion on those. Employers need to remember that outside of work people do have lives and don't have to always be so uptight or politically correct when they post things on social media from their personal pages.
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Employers should continue monitoring employee's usage of social media during work, that way there is a constant reminder that someone is watching you and to be mindful of what you say and how you say it on social media. Although again we have freedom of speech and expression sometimes things said about your employer via social media deserve repercussion and employers should handle the matter that would affect their business accordingly.
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References:
Mello, J. A. (2012). Social media, employee privacy and concerted activity: Brave new world or big brother? Labor Law Journal, 63(3), 165-173.
Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A. (2012). Blurred boundaries: Social media privacy and the Twenty-First-Century employee. American Business Law Journal, 49(1), 63-124.
Harbert, T. (2019, March 16). Watching the Workers. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/watching-the-worke...
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References:
Delgado, A. (2018, August 14). Employee privacy at stake as surveillance technology evolves. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/employee-privacy-surveillance-technology-evolv...
Rapacon, S. (2016, February 05). How using social media can get you fired. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/05/how-using-social-media-can-get-you-fired.ht...
Moussa, M. (n.d.). Monitoring Employee Behavior Through the Use of Technology and Issues of Employee Privacy in America - Mahmoud Moussa, 2015. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244015580168
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