The “Trendy” Guidelines #PURE3600SP2021
Social media use in the workplace has been receiving significant amounts of attention in the media, specifically on social media is where complaints and cases are going viral. Many cases where an employee has been fired for posting to social media have been exposed on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Personally, I have seen the cases where an employee posts a dancing video to TikTok and the company fired them for being on their phones/ not utilizing company time properly. In Fresco, there was a case where airport employees posted a video of the four of them dancing along to one of the TikTok trends and they were fired after the company saw their viral video. In this case, the employees already finished their tasks and were not in the way of anything. The four employees feel they did not do anything wrong, however the company that employs them for the airport, FAT, says otherwise, “In the video, the employee’s inappropriate behavior in the work environment displays poor judgement and does not reflect the conduct expected of individuals working at FAT.” The company felt the employees were displaying poor judgement, which was grounds for termination. Many people on social media are not agreeing with the company and feel the four employees should have never lost their jobs.
Many implications can arise from using social media at work, but it is a hard to lay down laws/guidelines, because a lot of social media is considered free speech. There needs to be guidelines in place, that are very cut and dry to let employees know that their words can cause issues for the company. I think it is acceptable for a company to create guidelines regarding the sharing of company information or “hacks,” because that information can cost the company money and other issues.
At this point, social media is something people go to if they have a minute or two to kill, so I feel as though it is okay for employees to use social media at the workplace. As long as the company and each employee understand they can only spend a few minutes at most, on social media throughout the day. A lot of company’s policies say otherwise. It seems many want to eliminate social media from the workplace completely. I think companies find it to be too much of a risk. Many guidelines that are currently written are more for saving the company, rather than empowering the employees. The companies write these guidelines to ensure their safety. They are restricting the online communication, because they have seen other companies fall after being exposed on social media.
