Social media in the work place: friend or foe?.
| dc.contributor.author | Mulauzi, Felesia | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-02-28T05:36:43Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-02-28T05:36:43Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The importance and use of social media in the workplace has greatly increased and therefore cannot be ignored in today’s information age. Despite the increase in social media usage today, efforts made in understanding the use of these tools in workplaces is still limited especially in developing countries. Very little is known on the ways in which employees and employers in the workplace use social media for it has great influence on work dynamics and can cause problems if left unregulated. Thus, this study sought to investigate how social media is being used in the workplace by both employers and employees, the mostly used public social media in the workplace, the opportunities as well as the challenges that social media presents in the workplace. The focus was on public social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which are run by commercial providers and are often free. The study involved a survey of literature from both online (mostly on general google and google scholar) and offline materials related to the topic. The findings of the study revealed that organisations and their employees use different kinds of social media tools and services in the workplace. Employers mainly use it in recruitment, collective bargaining and to make visible their products and services and reach out to millions of customers. Employees use social media to operate and communicate on job related issues in a fast and easier way than before resulting in improved productivity, increased efficiency, increased marketing opportunities among other opportunities. On the other hand, the study revealed that social media is misused for non-work related activities by employees such as checking on sport scores, family and friends, downloading music and video, fraud, information leakage, reputation damage, discrimination and many more resulting in decreased productivity. Based on these findings, the paper recommends that organisations should monitor the usage to ensure that employees use social media sites productively and to the interest of the organisation. Employers should also formulate appropriate workplace policies to guide employees on how to use social media for job purposes. | en |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2414 – 2700 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://dspace.unza.zm/handle/123456789/5805 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | Library and Information Association of Zambia (LIAZ) Journal | en |
| dc.subject | Social media. | en |
| dc.subject | Web 2.0. | en |
| dc.subject | Social networking. | en |
| dc.subject | Internet. | en |
| dc.subject | World Wide Web. | en |
| dc.subject | Electronic environment. | en |
| dc.subject | ICTs. | en |
| dc.title | Social media in the work place: friend or foe?. | en |
| dc.type | Article | en |