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Employees’ Social Media Conduct

Marshakie Applewhite

PHI103: Informal Logic

Professor: Luke Van Horn

July 31, 2017

In a world that is increasingly growing technologically savvy, internet and social networks have interfered with human privacy. The internet has reduced the world into a global village, as social media encourages social interactions and sharing of information, events, and activities with people we know or do not know from different parts of the world. As a result, employers are increasingly using social media to monitor their worker's behavior outside their working premises. Arguably, employees carry their company’s image and brand and are more likely to influence perceptions and attitudes towards their employer both at work and away from work (Pearson, 2010). It is therefore right for businesses to manage their image by monitoring and to take disciplinary action against employees whose social media conduct may ruin the company’s image. There are counter arguments to this view though, hence the question; should it be legal for employers to discipline or fire employees by content aired on social networks even if the activity was not done on the job.

Employees’ conduct outside work premises have the potential of ruining the company’s or brand’s image regardless of whether they were acting independently or mandated to perform that way (Qualman, 2010). As such, employers, who are mostly in business, are expected to protect their companies by frequently monitoring their employees’ social media behavior that may directly or indirectly ruin their reputation or interfere with their profession. A teacher for example, who uses vulgar language in social media, may have his or her students seeing their profile, hence a negative influence. The popular Nickelodeon sponsored program ‘Sam and Cat’ came to an end when nude images of the main character Sam, Jennette McCurdy went viral on social media. Her contract was terminated in consideration of the company’s image as a children brand.

It is virtually impossible to separate social media conduct from professional ethics as employees conduct may show their ethical behavior at work (Kaplan & Heinlein, 2010). It is therefore right to punish employees who may portray the employers negatively through their social media content. However, others may argue that action taken against such employees is unreasonable since it acts on assumptions that their behavior reflects on their ethics or ruins the employer’s image. Qualman (2010) argues that there is a mother-child relationship between the employer and the employee, where a spoilt child shows a weak mother. Hence, negative social media conduct could cause negative public perceptions towards the employee’s employer.

Unfortunately, some employees tend to use social media to communicate negative messages about their company. While some of these messages may be innocently written or lightly written to evoke humor, some of them are malicious and intended to highlight the organization’s weaknesses (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Failure to monitor employees’ social media conduct may allow the spread of such messages that may cause negative public attitudes towards the employer, hence ruining their business. It is therefore important that the employer takes disciplinary action against such companies to save on their reputation and encourage them to use proper channels to air out their dissatisfaction.

Conclusively, employers have the solemn right to defend their brand’s image. How they do is solely up to them, as the owners of the business and the principal sufferers whenever the company is ruined. To protect their investment, it is important that they monitor their employees’ social media conduct outside work that may directly or indirectly destroy the company’s performance. It is therefore right for employers to take action against employees who may post messages or images on social media that may be damaging to their businesses’ reputation.

Reference List

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), 59-68.

Pearson, C. (2010). The cost of bad behavior: How incivility is damaging your business and what to do about it. Human Resource Management International Digest, 18(6).

Qualman, E. (2010). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. John Wiley & Sons.