Social Media In the Work Place and Patterns of UsageTrevor .docx

Social Media: In the Work Place and Patterns of Usage
Trevor Nesbit, University of Canterbury, Canterbury, New
Zealand
Abstract: As the adoption of social media increases, a number
of important themes have emerged. The
two main themes that are investigated in this study are the
perceived benefits and risks of using social
media in theworkplace;and thepatternsofusageof
socialmedia.The themeof theperceivedbenefits
and risks of using social media in the workplace is investigated
through a literature review and a
survey of third year commerce students about their perceptions.
The pattern of usage theme is also
explored through the same survey of a group of third year
commerce students. The analysis and dis-
cussion of the results from the survey highlighted a number of
interesting issues connected to the two
themes. The two main issues relating to the perceived benefits
and risks of using social media in the
work placeare firstly, that use of socialmedia tools to
enhanceemployeeretention is not seen as being
important by the group of respondents in this study in
comparison with other benefits identified in the
literature; and secondly, that the reduction of trust in an
organisation and incompatibility with organ-
isational culture are not seen as being amongst the significant
risks and challenges when using social
media in the work place by the group of respondents in the
study. The three main issues relating to
the patterns of usage theme include that Facebook is the most
frequently used social media tool by the

students surveyed who were under the age of 30; that there is
potentially a difference between the
genders in the frequency with which Wikis are used; and that
defining what constitutes frequent use
of one social media tool may be different to what constitutes
frequent use of another social media tool.
Other issuesraised in this study
includesocialmediaasanappropriatemarketing tool toreachpeople
under the age of 30 (and potentially other age groups), and has
potential to be used as part of educa-
tional programmes, however some care would need to be taken
over the choice of social media tool.
Keywords: Social Media, Work Place
Introduction
THE PURPOSE OF this paper is to investigate the use of social
media by exploringtwo themes. The first theme relates to the
perceived benefits and risks of using socialmedia in the
workplace and is carried out by an investigation of the literature
relating
to the use of social media in the work place and through a
survey of a group of third
year commerce students at the University of Canterbury. The
second theme relates to patterns
of usage and is explored using the same survey of third year
commerce students.
A number of pieces of literature are reviewed and concepts are
identified which are then
analysed and discussed to identify a number of benefits
pertaining to the use of social media
in the work place, as well as the risks and challenges of using
social media in the work place.

The results of the literature review were used as the basis for a
survey that was completed
by a group of third year commerce students with the aim of (a)
identifying any trends and
consistencies in their perceptions (when comparing them to the
literature) relating to the use
of social media in the work place and the risks and benefits
inherent in its use and (b) explor-
ing the students usage patterns of social media.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
Volume 5, Number 9, 2011, http://www.SocialSciences-
Journal.com, ISSN 1833-1882
© Common Ground, Trevor Nesbit, All Rights Reserved,
Permissions:
[email protected]
The paper provides a basis for further study into (a) the
perceptions of the use of social
media tools by those in the commerce profession, and (b) the
use of social media tools in
education.
Research Method
A brief literature review was conducted with the aim of
identifying issues surrounding the
use of social media in the work place.
Based on the results of this literature review, a survey was
created with the aim of meas-
uring the respondents’ use of social media, and the respondents’
perceptions of a range of
issues identified in the literature review.

The survey was created using the online survey tool, Survey
Monkey. Once the survey
had been created it was tested by six different trial respondents
in groups of three. The trial
respondents were contacts the author had on Facebook. A brief
outline of their background
is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Background of Trial Respondents
BackgroundAge RangeGenderTrial RespondentGroup
Teacher30-40Female1A
Teacher40-50Male2
Mature Student30-40Female3
Mature Student40-50Female4B
Recent Graduate20-30Male5
Recent Graduate20-30Male6
Group A were sent a link to the survey and were asked to
complete the survey. Two of the
trial respondents identified potential areas in the survey that
could be misleading along with
a mistake that resulted from copying and pasting sections of a
table. Once these issues had
been addressed, the link to the survey was sent to the members
of Group B asking them to
complete the survey. The feedback from one of these trial
respondents highlighted one small
grammatical error.
Once the survey had been finalised, the link to the survey was
emailed to a class of third
year commerce students at the University of Canterbury. After a
week, a follow up email
was sent to the class thanking those who had completed the
survey, which resulted in the

number of respondents almost doubling in size.
The final sample size of 79 has resulted in it not being possible
to conduct a wide range
of valid statistical tests to test the significance of differences in
views between respondents
of different age groups, particularly as the vast majority of
respondents were from the under
30 year old age group. However, a smaller number of chi-
squared tests were able to be
conducted to measure the significance of differences in views
between male and female re-
spondents.
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY
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Literature Review
The literature review of the use of social media in the work
place highlighted a number of
important concepts including the need to understand the
benefits and risks of using social
media in the work place; approaches to take in the adoption of
social media in the work
place; and that the use of social media should be seen as the
“use of a communication tool”
as opposed to being an end in itself. The literature review
summarises a number of studies
that have been conducted with the emerging concepts being
highlighted on the section titled
“Concepts Emerging from the Literature Review”.

The Use of Blogging in the Work Place
Lavenda (2008) cited a Forrester survey in which it was found
that 78% of IT organisations
are concerned about the risks of employee-driven, unsanctioned
use of Web 2.0 tools and
technologies. Lavenda (2008) goes on to state “how the social
forces that are driving change
in the consumer computing world are also impacting on the way
business gets done”, and
goes on to identify some additional forces and needs that are
introduced by business. These
included (a) the need for distributed and time-independent staff
to communicate in a practical
and reliable way; (b) the need to locate, access and share
information quickly; (c) the desire
to more effectively leverage contacts and content; (d) the need
to improve employee satis-
faction to retain the best employees; (e) the need to improve
productivity in order to remain
competitive; and (f) the need to reduce expenses.
It was also identified in Lavenda (2008) that employees having
had good home experiences
in the use of social media tools were also seeking:
• More interactive, intuitive and user-friendly tools for using
applications and information
systems
• Simpler communication and collaboration between employees,
customers and business
partners
• A customisable and personalisable user experience, with this
being based on the prediction
of a Gartner study that by 2015 users will be customising 90%

of the tools that they use
both at work, at home, for leisure, and entertainment
Lavenda (2008) also identifies some of the challenges facing
managers who want to utilise
some of the benefits of social networking with these including
security, control, trust and
the lack of integration with other tools used by employees.
Lavenda (2008) concludes, by
identifying four common approaches that are being taken by
organisations to the use of social
networking tools with these being to (a) raise the drawbridges
and prohibit their use; (b) ignore
the phenomenon; (c) provide enterprise “look-a-like”
equivalents of consumer services; and
(d) permit (and even encourage) limited use of consumer tools,
subject to corporate policies.
These are all aspects that would need to be considered to ensure
that the potential benefits
of using social media in the work place do eventuate.
The Influence of Social Networks on Employee Turnover
The influence of social networks and value congruence on
turnover intention amongst em-
ployees in the public and not-for-profit sector was examined in
a study by Moynihan and
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Pandey (2008). They applied two approaches to turnover of staff
that were seen as being
absent from the previous literature in the public and not for

profit sectors with the two ap-
proaches being person-organisation fit and social network
theory. It was proposed that intra-
organisational social networks reduce turnover by making it less
desirable in contrast to
inter-organisational social networks which make it easier for
employees to find new jobs.
Some evidence was found to support the claim of Mossholder,
Settoon and Henagan
(2005) that “relational ties people form from working together
may be the ties that bind”.
In their sample, the aspects of social network theory that appear
to be related to explaining
employee turnover are the social relationships that employees
have with co-workers and the
sense of obligation that they have towards them.
The conclusions of Moynihan and Pandey (2008) went on to
include support for the role
of intra-organisational social networks in limiting or reducing
turnover, but had little support
for the notion of inter-organisational social networks in shaping
employers intentions to
move to another employer.
Risks in a Web 2.0 World
The risks to both employees and business in adopting Web 2.0
tools for business purposes
were presented in a study by Short (2008) who identified as part
of this study that regardless
of the specific technologies that are used, it is the manner in
which the new technologies are
implemented, and how the associated risks are managed that
will be most important. Short
(2008) explains how in some cases the new technologies are

being adopted and used by
employees without the knowledge of the organisation.
The specific risks identified in this study are security, as well as
social risks that can exist
with the increased interactivity that can result in people
divulging information (including
proprietary organisational information) to people both outside
the organisation and inside
the organisation whom they might not have divulged the
information to previously. Short
(2008) goes on to conclude that the challenge for organisations
in a Web 2.0 world is how
to make best use of the technology without opening the
organisation up to new threats that
outweigh the benefits of the technology.
Collaboration Changing Everything
The potential of Web 2.0 and social media technologies, and in
particular wikis, was focussed
on Tapscott and Williams (2007) when they outlined the
changes that these types of techno-
logies can bring about to the business environment. The four
important principles identified
by Tapscott and Williams (2007) as being part of what they
coined as being ‘wikinomics’
were openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. These four
principles are important in
this study because they relate to a number of the benefits and
risks that result from using
social media in the work place.
Use of Social Media in the Enterprise
In looking at how Web 2.0 tools could be used by an enterprise
and the value that could be
gained from doing so, McAfee (2006) identified a number of

significant improvements that
could be made in areas such as the generation, capturing and
sharing of knowledge; letting
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people find helpful colleagues; tapping into sources of
innovation; and harnessing the ‘wisdom
of crowds’.
Use of Semantic Web Technologies to Enable Community
The application of social networking tools to a semantic social
network portal that is used
to support enterprise training units in a company was the focus
of a study conducted by
Neumann et al (2005). While much of this study was an
overview of other portal sites and
their features, the authors did conclude with the comment that
“the semantic web technologies
can help to enable communities to evolve, use and manipulate
more intuitively emerging
content and knowledge structures”.
Use of Twitter as a Form of CRM
An article written by Bielski (2009) described how banks and
other businesses in the United
States are starting to use Twitter to communicate informal
messages to their customers, and
describes some of the benefits of the use of this type of
technology to those businesses.
Bielski (2009) described how a bank had used the technology to

communicate not only in-
ternally to employees, but also to their customers. Other
examples cited in the article included
being able to notify customers of unusual occurrences with one
of these examples being an
airline notifying customers that a delay was due to staff helping
some special needs customers,
with the customers being pleased that they could be notified this
simply. The article concludes
with a quote that this type of technology has “the potential to be
the new customer relationship
management system”.
Social Media as a Communication “Tool”
In a short article written by Moorcroft (2008) about the public
relations profession, it was
highlighted that the use of social media by organisations needed
a lot more thought than was
being given. Moorcroft (2008) has a view that “communicators
need to get a better grip on
the advantages and disadvantages of social media and develop a
plan that makes sense for
their organisations”. He goes on to describe how blogs are a
good way to engage stakeholders
and how podcasting to stakeholders has its place, but also how
these approaches can create
risks that are regulatory, disclosure and legal related. Moorcroft
(2008) concludes by stating
that “social media is about giving, sharing and exchanging in a
timely and thoughtful manner
and not about taking, dictating and self-promoting in a reckless
fashion”.
Employees’ Readiness for Social Media
The readiness of employees for the introduction of social media
was briefly discussed in a

short article by Sinickas (2008) who began with the comment
that “some communicators
who’ve already launched new media tools on their intranets are
disappointed with their uptake
amongst employees. A contributing factor to this is explained as
being related to having
realistic expectations for the use of the new tools. Sinickas
(2008) goes on to identify a range
of questions that should be considered in relation to the
introduction of new media tools in
an organisation including (a) how familiar are the employees
with the new tools being intro-
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duced; (b) how often do the employees use the new tools in
their daily lives; (c) how likely
are the employees to use a new tool that has yet to be launched
in the organisation; and (d)
The reasons why employees do not currently use the new tools,
which may include lack of
awareness of the tools, issues in the use of the tools themselves.
A number of reasons were also identified in this article as to
why some employees do not
adopt the use of social media tools as part of their work
including (a) having less discretionary
time at work than at home; (b) supervisors pressuring
employees to be more productive; (c)
lack of candor or openness in the blogs of those in leadership
roles; (d) senior management
not keeping their blogs updated or responding to comments in

blogs; and (e) humour and
controversy not being valued in communication within the
organisation.
Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Social Media
The embracing of social media tools by an information provider
in Australia was discussed
in an article by Keisler (2008) along with some of the key
advantages experienced and key
lessons learned in their adoption. One of the key changes that
resulted from the adoption of
social media tools was that the “water cooler chat” became more
public and more mobile,
thereby enabling more people to take part. Keisler (2008)
includes a definition of social
media which includes “all avenues share common traits: they’re
editable and participative,
they allow audiences to add content and they connect people.
Social media includes blogs,
message boards, chatrooms, forums, social networks (such as
MySpace and Facebook),
video sharing (You Tube), picture sharing (photobucket,
snapfish, flickr), podcasts, vodcasts,
wikis, groups and virtual worlds or communities (Second Life)”.
The key lessons learned for managers in this study are
reproduced in Table 2. The final
comment in Keisler (2008) was that “good communication
approaches are still relevant –
this is just another place to have the conversation”.
Table 2: Key Lessons Learned from the Use of Social Media in
the Work Place (Keisler,
2008)
Discover what the employees are already doing with social

media and harness that
Always be honest about the intentions of the use of social media
as the participants are real
people with real interest and real insights
Be prepared to listen and engage with using the social media
Be prepared to learn from mistakes in the use of social media
Social media is part of the overall communication mix for the
organisation
Lead the way in the use of social media
Be confident to embrace social media
Concepts Emerging from Literature Review
A number of trends emerge from the literature that has been
reviewed that relate to the first
theme of this study (benefits and risks of using social media in
the workplace). These trends
are related to the benefits of the use of social media in the work
place; the challenges and
risks that exist in the use of social media in the work place;
different approaches that can be
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taken by management to the use of social media in the work
place; and the concept that the
social media tools are really just another toolset in the
facilitation of communication that
needs to be understood and managed, and as such are not an end
in themselves.
Benefits of the Use of Social Media in the Work Place

The literature that was reviewed showed there were many
benefits of using social media in
the work place, with these being presented in Table 3.
Table 3: Benefits of Using Social Media in the Work Place
Increasing the engagement of staff
Enhancing the effectiveness of communication
Enhancing the timeliness of communication
Increasing the number of people involved in information
communication
Enhancing employee retention (where the social networks are
within an organisation)
The ease of use due to interactivity, user friendliness, and
employees being familiar with
the use of the tools in the personal lives.
Increasing the engagement of staff and other stakeholders was
identified by Moorcroft (2008),
along with the enhancing of communication both in its
effectives and timeliness being
mentioned in Bielski (2009), Neumann et al (2005) and Lavenda
(2008) being one of the
more common concepts. The idea of increasing the number of
people that took place in the
informal chat around the water cooler was highlighted in
Keisler (2008). This increased en-
gagement is also very similar to the increased sharing that was
identified in both Tapscott
and Williams (2007) and McAfee (2006).
The concept of the use of social media potentially enhancing
employee retention was ex-
plored by both Lavenda (2008) and Moynihan and Pandey
(2008), with this latter piece of
work providing some support for the idea of Mossholder et al

(2005) that social networks
within an organisation may enhance retention. The work of
Mossholder et al (2005) also
found little support for the notion of social networks between
organisations increasing em-
ployee turnover.
That social media tools can result in increased productivity
through being able to find in-
formation faster and being able to leverage existing contacts as
was mentioned in Lavenda
(2008). Both Sinickas (2008) and Lavenda (2008) comment on
the importance of the inter-
activity, user friendliness and ease of use of the tools,
particularly as employees of the organ-
isation may have already become familiar with using the tools
in their personal lives.
Risks and Challenges from the Use of Social Media in the Work
Place
The literature that was reviewed showed there were many risks
and challenges associated
with using social media the work place, with these being
presented in Table 4.
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Table 4: Risks and Challenges Associated with Using Social
Media in the Work Place
Implementation is the key issue
Security, control and trust are significant issues

The divulging of confidential information to the wrong people
is a potential issue
The inappropriate use of social media tools may put the
organisation at legal risk
The organisation being unaware of the use of social media tools
within the organisation
The use of social media tools may not fit the organisational
culture
The perceived time wasting of employees using social media
within the organisation
While there are many risks and challenges in the use of social
media in the work place, how
social media is implemented in the work place is seen as being
the key to success by Short
(2008).
The issues of security, control and trust were highlighted in
Lavenda (2008), with Moorcroft
(2008) and Sinickas (2008) going on to point out the risk of
confidential information being
divulged to people in social networks outside the organisation
through the use of social
media, with this being connected to the potential legal risks that
Lavenda (2008) also identi-
fied.
The risk of unsanctioned use of social media tools within an
organisation was identified
by both Lavenda (2008) and Short (2008), with the latter going
on to point out that where
unsanctioned use of social media tools is found in an
organisation, attempts to shut it down
can result in the employees continuing to use the tools in secret,
which can result in the or-
ganisation not gaining the potential benefits from the use of the

tools.
A further challenge identified by Sinickas (2008) is that the
humour that typically exists
in communities using social media tools may not be valued in
the communication culture
in some organisations, and the adoption of social media tools in
such organisations may be
disruptive to the organisational culture. Sinickas (2008) also
identified time wasting as a
risk of using social media in the workplace.
Approaches to take in the Adoption of Social Media in the Work
Place
The four approaches that were identified by Lavenda (2008) of
raising the drawbridge, ig-
noring, providing lookalikes, and permitting and encouraging
are all on the surface valid
responses to the possible adoption of the social media in an
organisation, with some of these
approaches being more risk averse to others that are more risk
seeking.
To ignore the use of social media that is already going on in the
organisation has the po-
tential to ignore a benefit that exists so that no leverage can be
gained from it. The view of
Sinickas (2008) was that becoming aware of the existence of
social media tools is an important
first step as opposed to being unaware of or ignoring the
potential benefits and associated
risks of the adoption of social media.
Finding out what employees are already doing with social media
tools was an approach
identified by Keisler (2008) as well as the need for

organisations to try and learn from their
mistakes in the use of social media before abandoning their use.
The concepts of raising the
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drawbridge and ignoring social media put forward as approaches
by Lavenda (2008) should
only really be considered with full knowledge of the facts.
It may be that upon examining what employees are already
doing (Keisler, 2008) a decision
to raise the drawbridge may be appropriate as the risks
identified earlier may be greater than
the ensuing benefits. In the same way the use of social media
tools in the organisation may
have been analysed and found to be of little consequence in
terms of risks and benefits, and
as such it may be safe to pay little attention to them, but not to
completely ignore them.
The issue of providing lookalike tools may serve some
organisations reasonably well in
that they can address some of the risks involved in the adoption
of social media type tools
while still gaining some of the benefits. The main issues with
this approach is the cost of
development with other tools in some cases being freely
available; and also the employees
familiarity with the widely available tools as identified in
Lavenda (2008) and Sinickas

(2008). The approach of using lookalike tools would also help
address the issue of the integ-
ration of the social media tools with other tools in the
organisation (Lavenda, 2008).
Social Media Tools are Communication “Tools” and not the
Goal
When Bielski (2009) identified the use of Twitter as a Customer
Relationship Management
(CRM) tool, it was more a case of the adoption of a new “tool”
for an existing process so as
to enhance it, with an extension of this being that social media
tools are “tools” and not the
goal. In Bielski (2009) the goal was to enhance CRM and the
use of Twitter was a means
or a tool used to achieve the goal. The comment in the
conclusion of Keisler (2008) that
good communication approaches are still relevant and that the
use of social media tools is
just another place to have the conversation is also consistent
with this idea that the use of
social media tools is not the goal.
Moorcroft (2008) makes reference to social media tools needing
to be understood better
before launching in to their use, and the importance of having
realistic expectations about
the use of social media as identified in Sinickas (2008) is also
pointing to the need for
knowing what social media can do to help enhance the
organisation.
Summary
The issues identified in this section of the paper relate to the
first theme of the study (benefits
and risks from the use of social media in the workplace) and

form some of the basis for the
design of the survey that was used in this study. The design of
the survey is covered in the
next section of this paper.
Design of Survey
The survey was made up of four sections. The first two sections
relate to the second theme
of this study (patterns of usage of social media). In the first
section respondents were asked
to indicate their age, gender, and whether they had any
familiarity with a list of social media
tools, with the list being: Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr,
LinkedIn, Bebo, Wikis and
MySpace. Where the respondents indicated some familiarity
with one of these tools they
were able to carry on through the rest of the survey. The second
section asked the respondents
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to indicate how frequently they used each of the above social
media tools and asked them
to indicate other social media tools that they used.
The third and fourth sections relate to the first theme of this
study (benefits and risks of
the use of social media in the work place). The third section of
the survey asked the respond-
ents to indicate how strongly they believed that the benefits
shown in Table 5 were arising
from the use social media in the work place. The fourth section

of the survey asked the re-
spondents to indicate how strongly they believed that the risks
shown in Table 6 were per-
taining to the use of social media in the work place. Both of
these were done using a five
point likert scale from strongly agree through to strongly
disagree and included a sixth option
of “unsure”.
Table 5: Benefits that Respondents Were asked to Rate Level of
Agreement With
Increasing the engagement of staff
Enhancing the effectiveness of communication
Enhancing the timeliness of communication
Increasing the number of people involved in information
communication
Increase employee retention
Table 6: Risks that Respondents Were asked to Rate Level of
Agreement With
Breaches of security
Loss of control
Reducing trust
Divulging of confidential information outside the organisation
The organisation itself being unaware of their use
Use of the tools being incompatible with the culture of the
organisation
Wasting employee time
Results
The link to the Survey Monkey based survey was emailed to a
group of third year commerce
students that included 390 students in total. Of the 390 students,
79 students responded to

the survey giving an overall response rate of 20.3%. This
section of the paper presents the
results of the demographic questions; followed by the results of
the sections relating to the
first theme of the study (benefits and risks of using social media
in the work place); followed
by the results of the sections relating to the second theme of the
study (patterns of usage of
social media).
General Demographic Questions
The breakdown of age and gender of the respondents is shown
in Table 7. This shows that
the vast majority of the respondents were under the age of 30
(69/79 = 87.3%), with a reas-
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onably even spread of female and male respondents. The very
low numbers in the older age
groups mean that it is not possible to make comparisons across
the age groups. Most of the
results that are present in these sections of the report are based
on just this group of respond-
ents who are under the age of 30.
Table 7: Breakdown of Respondents by Age and Gender
Gender
TotalMaleFemaleAge

693633Under 30
62430-39
42240-49
794039Grand Total
The familiarity with the social media tools was very high across
all of the respondents as
shown in Table 8 with 94.9% of all respondents (75/79)
indicating that they were familiar
with the social media tools listed in the question. In the under
30 group 66 of the 69 respond-
ents (95.7%) indicated that they were familiar with the social
media tools. The breakdown
of familiarity by Gender is shown in Table 9 which indicates a
very high level of familiarity
with the social media tools across both female and male
respondents.
Table 8: Breakdown by Age and Familiarity with Social Media
Tools
Familiarity
TotalNoYesAge
69366Under 30
6-630-39
41340-49
79475Grand Total
Table 9: Breakdown by Gender and Familiarity with Social
Media Tools
Familiarity
TotalNoYesAge
39138Female

40337Male
79475Total
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Benefits, Risks and Challenges from Using Social Media Tools
in the Work
Place
The level of agreement of all respondents familiar with social
media with the different per-
ceived benefits of using social media tools in the work place is
shown in Table 10. At least
40 of the 66 (60.6%) respondents agree or strongly agree with
the first four perceived benefits
in the table. However, the last benefit shown in the table
(increasing employee retention)
only had 20 of the 66 (30.3%) respondents agreeing or strongly
agreeing that it was a benefit.
This particular benefit did not have a high level of
disagreement, but had 38 of the 66 (57.6%)
respondents responding as being unsure, or they neither agreed
nor disagreed.
Table 10: Benefits of Using Social Media Tools in the Work
Place – All Respondents
Familiar with Social Media
Un-
sure
Strongly
Disagree

DisagreeNeither
Agree or
Disagree
AgreeStrongly
Agree
42810348Increase the engagement of
staff
51118329Increase the effectiveness of
communication
419103012Increase the timeliness of
communication
51643614Increase the number of people
involved in the communication
of information
123926119Increase employee retention
The level of agreement of all respondents familiar with social
media with the different per-
ceived risks and challenges of using social media tools in the
work place is shown in Table
11. The only two risks and challenges that had less than 30 of
the 66 (45%) respondents
agreeing or strongly agreeing were the reducing of trust and the
use of tools not being com-
patible with the culture of the organisation. It should however
be noted that both of these
risks were the only ones where more than 40% (27 or more of
the 66) of respondents were
neutral in that they neither agreed nor disagreed or indicated

that they were unsure. The
other risks and challenges all had at least 60% agreeing or
strongly agreeing, with less than
30% being neutral.
The risks and challenges of breaches of security and the
divulging of confidential inform-
ation outside the organisation were the only two risks where
more than 50 of the 66 (75%)
respondents agreed or strongly agreed.
72
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Table 11: Risks and Challenges Associated with Using Social
Media in the Work Place
– All Respondents Familiar with Social Media
UnsureStrongly
Dis-
agree
Dis-
agree
Neither
Agree
or Dis-
agree
AgreeStrongly
Agree

80343318Divulging of confidential informa-
tion outside the organisation
80343516Breaches of security
1105103010The organisation itself being un-
aware of their use
71752026Wasting employee time
707113011Loss of control
911018217Reducing trust
110721189Use of the tools being incompat-
ible with the culture of the organ-
isation
Use of Social Media Tools
The frequency with which any social media tools are used is
broken down by gender across
all respondents who have some familiarity with social media,
with this being shown in Table
12. This was determined by identifying how frequently the
respondents used their most
preferred social media tool, and shows little difference in how
frequently social media tools
are used across the genders.
Table 12: Frequency of Use of Any Social Media Tool by
Gender
TotalNeverMonthlyWeeklyDailyGender
3916626Female
3625524Male
753111150Total
The frequency with which any social media tool is used by

those respondents under the age
of 30 is shown in Table 13. This shows that 48 of the 66
(72.7%) respondents under the age
of 30 who had some familiarity with social media tools used at
least one on a daily basis,
with 58 of the 66 (87.9%) using social media tools on at least a
weekly basis. The numbers
of respondents in the other age groups are not sufficient to make
any meaningful observations.
73
TREVOR NESBIT
Table 13: Frequency of Use of Any Social Media Tool by the
Under 30 Age Group
TotalNeverMonthlyWeeklyDailyGender
3312624Female
3323424Male
66351048Total
The frequency with which particular social media tools are used
by those respondents under
the age of 30 who have some familiarity with social media is
shown in Table 14. This shows
considerable variation in how frequently some of the different
tools are used by these re-
spondents.
Table 14: Frequency of Use of Social Media Tools by the Under
30 Age Group
MySpaceWikisBebo

Linked-
InFlickr
Face-
bookTwitterBlogsAny
16000471848Daily
214201114310Weekly
31171746105Monthly
6035576558455453Never
666666666666666666Total
Table 15 shows the number of respondents in this group who
use each social media tool on
a daily basis, with this showing Facebook as being the most
used, and five of the eight tools
covered by the questions in the survey being used by one or
zero people in this group
(Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Bebo).
Table 15: Daily Use of Social Media Tools by Under 30s
PercentageDaily
71.2%47Facebook
12.1%8Blogs
9.1%6Wikis
1.5%1Twitter
1.5%1MySpace
0.0%0Flickr
0.0%0LinkedIn
0.0%0Bebo
Table 16 shows the number of respondents in this group who
use each social media tool on
at least a weekly basis, with this also showing that Facebook is
the most widely used across

this group (in excess of 80%), and with wikis being used by just
over one third of these re-
74
SOCIAL SCIENCES
spondents on at least a weekly basis. As with the use of social
media tools on a daily basis
Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Bebo have very low level
of usage (all under 10%)
amongst this group of respondents.
Table 16: At Least Weekly Use of Social Media Tools by Under
30s
PercentageAt least WeeklyWeeklyDaily
87.9%581147Facebook
33.3%22148Wikis
13.6%936Blogs
7.6%541Twitter
4.5%321MySpace
3.0%220Bebo
1.5%110Flickr
0.0%000LinkedIn
The frequency of use of the different social media tools for the
Under 30 Year Old respondents
broken down by gender is shown in Table 17. The result for the
use of Wikis is shaded as
on inspection it appears as if there may be a difference in how
frequently the two genders
use Wikis that doesn’t appear to exist with the other social

media tools.
Table 17: Frequency of use of Different Social Media Tools by
Under 30s Grouped by
Gender
MaleFemale
TotalNeverMonthlyWeeklyDailyTotalNeverMonthlyWeeklyDail
y
33325233312624Facebook
33117963324450Wikis
33217233324315Blogs
33265113329130Twitter
33285003330210Flickr
33321003333000LinkedIn
33285003329220Bebo
33301113330210MySpace
Analysis and Discussion
This section of the paper presents an analysis and discussion of
the results, commencing
with the first theme of the study (benefits and risks of using
social media in the work place);
followed by the second theme of the study (patterns of usage of
social media).
75
TREVOR NESBIT
Benefits, Risks and Challenges from Using Social Media Tools
in the Work
Place

When it comes to the benefits of using social media tools in the
work place, there was a
reasonably high level of agreement with most of the benefits
that were identified in the liter-
ature review, with the one area that had an overall agreement
level of less than 33% (see
Table 10) being that of increasing employee retention. The
reasons for this being at a much
lower level than the other benefits may be due to the
respondents being students with little
experience of the work place. It could also be due to this
particular area being one in which
more research is needed to back up the work that has already
been carried out by Lavenda
(2008), Moynihan and Pandey (2008) and Mossholder et al
(2005).
The data presented in Table 11 shows the responses pertaining
to the risks and challenges
brought about by the use of social media tools in the work
place. The risks and challenges
are displayed in three groups. The data in Table 18 has
combined the responses for the three
groups of risks and combined the data for (a) the neither agree
nor disagree and unsure re-
sponses and (b) the disagree and strongly disagree responses.
This data tested for significance
using a chi-squared test.
Table 18: Risks and Challenges Related to the Use of Social
Media in the Work
Place–Version 2
TotalDisagree
or

Neither
Agree or
AgreeStrongly
Agree
Risks and ChallengesGroup
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
or
Unsure
1326246834
Divulging of confidential in-
formation outside the organisa-
tion and breaches of security
A
19820518047
The organisation itself being
unaware of their use, wasting
B
employee time and loss of con-
trol
13218593916

Reducing trust and use of the
tools being incompatible with
the culture of the organisation
C
4624413418797Total
The result of the chi-squared test with 6 degrees of freedom
yielded a chi-test value of less
than 0.01 which indicates that there is a significant difference
between the responses relating
to the three groups of risks and challenges. This suggests that
the respondents have a signi-
ficantly higher level of agreement with the risks and challenges
in Group A than in Group
B, and also have a significantly higher level of agreement with
the risks and challenges in
Group B than in Group C.
76
SOCIAL SCIENCES
The seven risks have been separated into the three groups shown
in Table 18, and have
been categorised as external threats, internal process threats and
internal cultural threats with
these being shown in Table 19. The respondents to the survey
are indicating that the external
threats are the most significant, followed by the internal process
threats, with the internal
cultural threats being seen as being the least significant group.

SummaryRisks Identified in LiteratureNature of Threat
High level of agreement
(77.3%) and very low level of
disagreement (4.5%)
External Threats • Divulging of confidential in-
formation outside the organisa-
tion
• Breaches of security
Slightly lower level of agree-
ment (64.1%), but growing
Internal Process
Threats
• The organisation itself being
unaware of their use
level of neither agreeing nor
being unsure (25.8%)
• Wasting employee time
• Loss of control
Lowest level of agreement
(41.7%) and highest level of
Internal Cultural
Threats
• Reducing trust
• Use of the tools being incompat-

ible with the culture of the or-
ganisation
neither agreeing nor being un-
sure (44.7%)
It is of interest that the internal cultural threats appear to have
more attention paid to them
in the literature than the group of respondents in this study.
However, it should be noted that
the respondents have little experience of the work place, and
that if such as study was to be
replicated with a group of experienced professionals, the
internal cultural threats may be
seen as being of higher significance.
Use of Social Media Tools
There is a high level of familiarity with social media tools
amongst the under 30 year old
respondents, and this high level of familiarity appears
reasonably consistent across both the
male and female respondents as shown in Table 8 and Table 9.
This extends to the frequency
of use of the social media tools with 72.7% of the under 30 age
group indicating that they
use social media tools on a daily basis and that 87.9% of this
age group used social media
tools on either a weekly or daily basis as shown in Table 13.
The data in Table 20 has combined the ‘monthly’ and ‘never’
columns of Table 12 into
one column so that it could be used as the basis for a chi-
squared test.
77

TREVOR NESBIT
Table 20: Frequency of Use of Any Social Media Tool by
Gender Version 2
TotalMonthlyWeeklyDailyGender
Or Never
397626Female
367524Male
75141150Total
yielded a chi-test value of 0.97
which indicates that there is little difference between the
responses of the female and male
respondents.
The use of particular social media tools is quite varied amongst
the under 30 year old re-
spondents as was shown in Table 14 and Table 15 with
Facebook being by far the most used.
Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn and Bebo have very little
use amongst this particular
age group. Of interest was the frequency of use of Wikis and
Blogs in this age group, with
Table 15 showing that 12.1% of this age group used Blogs on a
daily basis and that 9.1%
used Wikis on a daily basis. However, when this is looked at on
a weekly and daily basis,
the usage of Wikis is at 33.3% and the usage of Blogs is at
13.6% as shown in Table 16.
This suggests that what constitutes frequent use of one social

media tool may not constitute
frequent use of another tool, with this data potentially
indicating that a frequent user of a
Wiki may use a Wiki less frequently than a frequent user of a
Blog uses a Blog. This is an
area that could be explored in a further study with the aim of
what constitutes frequent use
of a particular type of social media tool.
Very low usage of Twitter was of interest amongst this group of
third year commerce
students, particularly when a number of recent New Zealand
studies including Verhaart
(2010) and MacCullum (2010) have started to focus on the use
of Twitter as an eLearning
tool. Looking at this in the light of an earlier study by Nesbit
(2008) that indicated students
were more likely to participate electronically if the tools being
used were those that they
commonly use for social interaction. Given that the studies of
Verhaart (2010) and MacCullum
(2010) mainly involved students studying information
technology, it could be that these
students are more likely to experiment with technology in a way
that other students (including
the commerce students that are the focus of this paper) might
not be.
When it came to the use of different social media tools by
gender in the under 30 year age
group it appeared from the data in Table 17 that the biggest
difference between the genders
was in the frequency of the use of Wikis. The data in Table 21
was constructed by combining
the data relating to monthly and no use of Wikis across the
genders in Table 17 into one

column, with this data being tested for significance using a chi-
squared test.
Table 21: Frequency of Use of Wikis amongst Under 30 Year
Olds by Gender
TotalMonthly Or NeverWeeklyDailyGender
332850Female
331896Male
6646146Total
78
SOCIAL SCIENCES
yielded a chi-test value of 0.01
which indicates that there is a significant difference between the
responses of the female and
male respondents, which indicates that the males within the
sample group are much more
frequent users of wikis than females.
Conclusions
Conclusions relating to the first theme of the study (benefits
and risks of using social media
in the work place) are that when it comes to looking at the
perceived benefits of using social
media in the work place and the risks and challenges associated
with the use of social media
in the work place the issues where the respondents did not have
a high level agreement with
the literature were:

• The use of social media tools enhancing employee retention
• The use of social media tools reducing trust within an
organisation
• The use of social media tools not being compatible with the
culture of the organisation
It may be that there is a higher level of agreement with these
issues amongst respondents
who are already in the work place, and as such this would form
part of the basis of a further
study exploring their perceptions, and comparing these with the
perceptions of the third year
commerce students in this study.
Conclusions relating to the second theme of the study (patterns
of usage of social media)
are that amongst the group of students who were surveyed there
appears to be widespread
use of social media tools, and reasonably good understanding of
most issues surrounding
the use of social media in the work place. Across the group of
under 30 year olds who were
surveyed Facebook was the most frequently used social media
tool, with Twitter, MySpace,
Flickr, LinkedIn and Bebo being used very infrequently by this
group, suggesting that these
would not be good social media tools to use in marketing
campaigns aimed at this group
and as part of programmes of study for this group. Across all of
the social media tools sur-
veyed, Wikis were the only tool where there appeared to be a
significant difference in the
frequency of their use between female and male respondents.
An aspect to emerge from exploring the frequency of use of the

social media tools is that
what constitutes frequent use of one social media tool may be
different to what constitutes
frequent use of another social media tool, with this being an
aspect that could be used as the
basis for further research in the future.
Some areas identified for further study are the appropriateness
of the use of social media
in higher education, and in particular the choice of social media
tool; and the apparent dif-
ference in frequency of the use of wikis across the genders and
the reasons why this is the
case.
References
Bielski, L. (2009). Intrepid banks “tweet”. American Bankers
Association Banking Journal, 101(2),
7-8.
Keisler, K. (2008). Optimizing social media communication at
Sensis. SCM, 12(6), 24-27.
Lavenda, D. (2008). Does ‘blogging’ have a place in the
workplace?. The British Journal of Adminis-
trative Management, July 2008, 27-29.
79
TREVOR NESBIT
MacCullum, K. (2010). Attitudes of educators to the
introduction of mobile technology aimed at sup-
porting learners. Proceedings of First Annual Computing and

Information Technology Re-
search and Education New Zealand Conference, (pp 139-150).
Dunedin.
McAfee, P. (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The dawn of emergent
collaboration. MITSloanManagementReview,
47(3), 20-28
Moorcroft, D. (2008). Five Suspicions about our profession.
SCM, 12(4), 7.
Mossholder, K.W., Settoon, R.P. & Henagan, S.C. (2005). A
relational perspective on turnover: Ex-
amining structural, attitudinal and behavioural predictors.
AcademyofManagementJournal,
48, 807-818.
Moynahan, D. and Pandey, S. (2007). The ties that bind: Social
networks, person-organisation value
fit, and turnover intention. JPART, 18, 205-227
Nesbit, T. (2008). Developing communities of practice
elearning students: A New Zealand story. The
International Journal on Technology, Knowledge and Society.
4(3), 177-186.
Neumann, M., O’Murchu, I., Breslin, J., Decker, S., Hogan, D.
and MacDonaill, C. (2005). Semantic
social network portal for collaborative online communities.
Journal of European Industrial
Training, 29(6), 472-523.
Short, J. (2008). Risks in a web 2.0 world. Risk Management
55(10), 28-31.
Sinickas, A. (2008). Researching employees’ readiness for
social media. SCM, 12(6), 11.

Tapscott, D. and Williams, A. (2007). Wikinomics – How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything.
Atlantic Books, 2007
Verhaart, M. (2010). Using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning: A
wiki case study. Proceedings of First
Annual Computing and Information Technology Research and
Education New Zealand
Conference, (pp 275-284). Dunedin.
About the Author
Trevor Nesbit
Main teaching areas include eBusiness and computer
programming. Has completed two
double major bachelor degrees majoring in computer science,
mathematics, accountancy
and operations research, and has completed a masters degree in
management. A member of
the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand; the New
Zealand Computer Society;
the New Zealand Knowledge Management Network and the
Accounting and Finance Asso-
ciation of Australia and New Zealand. Recent research interests
include communities of
practice and the use of technology in higher education.
80
SOCIAL SCIENCES

DECEMBER 19,2011 www.BusinessWest.coin 33
M O D E R N O F F I C E
Tool or Trouble?
Social Media Poses
Opportunities and
Traps for Employers
Business owners and managers are increasingly realizing that
social media is here to stay, but it's not easy to craft workplace
policies for social networking that are effective and
enforceable.
The challenges arise in three sticky areas: personal online
activity
during work time, companies controlling their own Internet
presence, and employees badmouthing their employer through
social-media channels after work hours. The answers don't come
easy in any of these cases, but popular opinion — and legal
By JOSEPH BEDNAR
A
s director of HR
Services for the
Employers Assoc.
oftheNorthEast,
Mark Adams deals
with some 800 area companies.
And one aspect of the modern
workplace has heen particularly
confounding for them.
"In some of the discussions
I've had with companies, when
social media comes up, there

are some very strong viewpoints
on it," said Adams. "Some say
they don't want it in the work-
place at all, that they ahhor it in
the workplace. They figure it's
a drain on productivity and can
create a disturhance."
precedent — are beginnir g to crystallize.
34 MODERN OFFICE DECEMBER 19, 2011
But companies that see social media as more of
a nuisance than a tool are missing an opportunity,
said Christine Pilch Mancini, social media strategist,
speaker, and trainer with Grow My Company.
"We're in a world of emerging technology, and
social media is a tool to get work done these days,"
she said. "It allows quicker collaboration with other
people to solve problems, and it allows people to
share ideas."
But it also poses a conundrum for employers who
don't want their workers distracted by online chatter
"We're in a world of emerging
technology, and social media is a
tool to get work done these days. It
allows quicker collaboration with
other people to solve problems, and
it allows people to share ideas. "
during work hours — and who, in many cases, have

instituted policies curbing its use, or blocked sites
like Facebook and Twitter outright.
In the age of Web-enabled smartphones. Pilch
said, that's simply misguided. "Quite frankly, compa-
nies that are trying to block social media are sticking
their heads in the sand, because every employee is
holding the Internet in their pocket."
So what's an employer to do?
"Some companies use social media as a positive
tool, or they acknowledge its existence and are pro-
viding some meaningful use of it," Adams said. "For
example, employees
can use it on their own
time — break times,
what have you. In that
respect, it's akin to
what some companies
do with e-mail; they're
not going to bar all per-
sona] e-mail."
Pilch Mancini and
Adams are hardly alone
in their assessment of
the social-media para-
digm at work; in fact,
others go so far as to
argue that tweets and
status updates actually
contribute to a healthy
work environment,
although most U.S.

employers have yet to
see it that way.
Socialcast, a micro-
blogging platform,
surveyed 1,400 chief
information officers
at U.S. companies and
found that only 10% of
those employers allow
unlimited social networking on work time. Another
19% allow access for business purposes only, while
54% do not allow employees to use social networks
for any reason while at work.
However, according to a University of Melbourne
study, employees who engage in Svorkplace Internet
leisure browsing' — such as watching videos and
keeping up to date with friends — while at work are
9% more productive than those who don't.
The reasons touch on the benefits of a satisfied and
de-stressed workforce, but Pilch said there are morale
Mark Adams says some
companies are starting
to realize that barring
all social-media use can
be counterproductive.
issues involved as well. "If you're
blocking social media, you're tell-
ing employees you're not treating
them like adults and respecting
them enough to know how to del-
egate their time and still get their " ^ ^ " " " ^ " " ^ ^

work done.
"This is how people communicate," she contin-
ued. "Employers allow personal phone calls at work
Every child has to be able to talk to their parents; peo-
ple need to be able to talk to their family members.
www.Professional WomensChamber.com
Attorney Gary Breton
Bacon Wilson PC
Member
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35
Husbands and wives communicate on the phone
every day."

Social media, she said, "is another means of com-
munication, and if you slam that shut, employees will
default to the other Internet in their pocket. Would
you rather someone checked their computer screen
once in a while for instant messages, or checked their
"When employees converse among one an-
other in a social-media context, that can be
protected activity under the National Labor
Relations Act."
Facebook or Twitter account, or had their nose in
their cellphone all day? Because that's what you're
going to have" by barring social media at work com-
pletely.
Honing the Message
That's not the only new ground employers are
navigating when it comes to social media. Completely
different issues swirl about how a company presents
itself on social-media platforms, and who controls
the message.
"As far as corporate use of it, for marketing pur-
poses, where we see companies getting into problems
is consistency of substance and who is going to post
things up on a company's Facebook profile," Adams
said.
"Is it going to be centralized or decentralized?
And if it's going to be decentralized, does the content
still have to be vetted, or left up to the individuals?
Are there standards on how to craft those messages?

There are a lot of companies that craft policies that
don't get into all those details," he explained, while
other businesses might have little if any consistency
about how those policies are enforced.
Joshua-Michéle Ross, vice president of consulting
firm O'Reilly Radar, writes in Forbes magazine that
social media is an opportunity for savvy businesses,
but employees shouldn't be sent in without training.
"Begin from a position of trust," he writes. "While
there are possible negatives involved in having
employees on the social Web, most employees have
common sense. Begin with a set of possibilities first
(increasing awareness, improving customer service,
gaining customer insight, and so on), then draw up
a list of worst-case scenarios (badmouthing the com-
pany, inappropriate language, leaking intellectual
property, to name a few)."
Among the guidelines Ross suggests are: listen
before jumping into a conversation; be upfront about
your relationship to the company, show your per-
sonality ("you weren't hired to be an automaton");
respond to ideas, not people; know your facts and cite
sources; own up to mistakes; and never say anything
online you wouldn't say to someone's face or in the
presence of others.
In general, Ross concludes, companies should
"encourage employees to use social tools to engage
and interact with one another and with customers. In
all likelihood they are already using the social Web.
The difference is that currently they are using these
tools without any guidance."

Letter of the Law
Often, however, it's employers who need guid-
ance on social-media use, particularly when the law
becomes involved.
"The National Labor Relations Board has said
that, when employees converse among one another
in a social-media context, that can be protected activ-
ity under the National Labor Relations Act," Adams
said. "We've seen a number of cases where companies
have taken adverse action on people for discussions
in a social-media context; that can be unlawful."
Indeed, the NLRB has dealt with a number of
cases over the past year alone in which employees
were fired for badmouthing their employers through
social-media channels away from work — and has
come down fairly consistently in favor of the employ-
ee.
"An employee's speech is usually protected as long
as it's not publicly disgracing the employer," said
Meghan Sullivan, an attomey with Sullivan, Hayes
& Quinn in Springfield. But even that description
can be stretched, she said, noting that a recent case
involved a worker using some fairly salty language
to insult his boss — but, because it was posted in the
context of some specific workplace complaints (how
the company applies certain tax withholdings), the
NLRB determineid it to be protected speech.
"Employers definitely need to be careful,"
Sullivan said. "The board has been looking very
closely at employers' policies and insisting that they

be designed in such a way that they don't restrict
employees irom talking with each other about the
workplace, or determining whether the policy may
be so overly broad that somebody thinks they're not
supposed to talk about the workplace."
In one example, a hospital established a social-
media policy forbidding employees from posting
"anything confidential." The hospital intended only
to protect confidential patient data under the Health
Information Portability and Accountability Act,
but employees were confused by the language and
thought they couldn't discuss anything work-related
online. "You've got to be more specific than that,"
Sullivan said.
When a complaint arises from an employee alleg-
ing unfair treatment in a social-media situation, she
continued, "the first thing the board's going to look
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at is your poliq', and whether it infringes on employees' rights
under the
National Labor Relations Act to e n g ^ e in protected speech."
And if workers are allowed to badmouth their bosses online, it's
even
more difficult to regulate employees simply naming or neutrally
discuss-
ing their employer — although some businesses have tried.
"Some companies I've worked with have tried to regulate
mentioning
• Family and Individual Memberships
• Both Golf and Social Memberships
Meghan Sullivan says employers need to tread carefully when
crafting a social-media policy and enforce it consistently.
the company employees work for on their own personal pages,"
Adams
said, "but more and more, they're realizing that they're hard-
pressed to
enforce those standards aggressively.
"It's an area where technology is ahead of what the law cases
are," he
added. "Technology is evolving at such an extraordinary pace
that we
always have to catch up to it."

Bottom Line
It seems as if social media is here for the long haul, said those
we
spoke with, and employers are better off imderstanding its
dynamics and
channeling their employees' energies than cutting off something
that is
becoming as ubiquitous as e-mail.
"If your employees are using Facebook at work, they are also
likely
checking work e-maü after dinner or at odd hours of the day.
Don't ask
them to give up the former if you expect them to continue the
latter,"
Ross writes. "If you have good performance measurements,
playing the
'lost productivity card is a canard."
Pilch Mancini agrees. "If you really are concerned about social
media
sapping the productivity of your employees," she said, "maybe
you need
to take a good, hard look at who you have working for you.
There are
plenty of other temptations to take you away from your work,
and good
employees know how to delegate their time." •
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
•BusinessWest
D1FFEB1ÍCE
DEADLINE:

Dec. 30, 2011
413-781-8600x100
www.BusinessWest.com
MAY 23, 2011 WWW. .com T H E M O D E R N O F F I C E 23
Meghan Sullivan says employers serious about regulating
social-media use
need to understand their legal boundaries and enforce rules
consistently.
Status Update
In the Realm of Social Media,
Workers Have More Rights
Than Employers Might Think
By JOSEPH BEDNAR
M
eghan Sullivan has some advice for businesses thinking
about crafting policies for their employees' use of social
media: "get a good lawyer."
That's because what may seem to businesses like a common-
sense
rule, such as barring workers from publicly criticizing the
company
online, crosses into issues of free speech that are thornier than
many
employers may have guessed.
"If they set this up wrong, they're going

to get sued," said Sullivan, an attorney with
Sullivan, Hayes & Quinn in Springfield, cit-
ing recent cases in which the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) has determined
that posts on social-media sites, includ-
ing criticism of an employer, is protected
speech.
"So employers have to treat that speech
the same way they would Norma Rae stand-
ing on the table in the middle of the work-
place."
Take, for example, the case of American
Medical Response, which terminated an
employee for posting negative comments
about her supervisor on her Facebook page.
According to attorney Alice Pizzi of
Sullivan, Hayes & Quinn, who recently
conducted a presentation for area employ-
ers on issues of 'the digital workplace,' the
NLRB issued a complaint alleging that those
postings about American Medical Response
(AMR) constitute 'protected concerted
activity,' defined as activity employees may
legally undertake without fear of employer retaliation.
Under the terms of the eventual settlement, the NLRB noted in
a statement, "the company agreed to revise its overly broad
rules to
"A lot of employers use
social media to screen out
employees, but there's

some risk in doing that.
If an employer takes a
look at an employee's
Facebook page, and if the
candidate fails to secure
employment, you won't
be able to say, 7 didn't
know you fell into a pro-
tected category. '"
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24 THE MODERN OFFICE .Businesfct.1,cora MAY 23, 2011
ensure that they do not improperly restrict employ-
ees from discussing their wages, hours, and working
conditions with co-workers and others while not at
work, and that they would not discipline or discharge
employees for engaging in such discussions."
Michael Leahy, an attorney with Skoler, Abbott
& Presser in Springfíeld, said the leeway granted to
employees to publicly discuss the terms and condi-
tions of their employment strikes many business
"If employees are communicating
with each other over social media,
complaining about their work con-
ditions — 7 don't like my boss, ' 7
don't like my work hours,' 'Idon't
like the terms and conditions of my
employment' — and employers
take action based on that, it could
be a violation of the National La-
bor Relations Act "
executives as counterintuitive.
"I think most employers, when they look at the
language she used — it was a bit salty — would think
this is someone who's not fit for employment, but
the National Labor Relations Board disagreed. She
brought a complaint against AMR, and AMR settled
the case," he said.

That's far from the only such case. In one instance.
Pizzi noted, a non-union
employee of Build.com was
discharged after posting
comments about the com-
pany on her Facebook page.
The employee claimed the
discharge was in retalia-
tion for posting comments
about possible state labor-
code violations, which
drew responses from other
employees who were her
'Facebook friends.'
That case, too, was set-
tled — not only with full
back pay, but with a posted
notice from the employer
stating that employees have
the right to post comments
about the terms and condi-
tions of their employment
on their social-media pages
and will not be disciplined
for doing so.
These are developments that, frankly, baffle many
employers, said attorney Amy Royal, of Royal LLP in
Northampton, who said companies need to be pro-
active in updating their policies regarding this new
online environment — and educate themselves on
what, exactly, they're allowed to regidate.

"I think employers definitely have concerns,"
Royal said. "I have assisted businesses in developing
policies in relation to social-media guidelines, and
what employers can and can't do relative to social
media in the workplace and outside of it."
For this issue's focus on the Modem Office,
BusinessWest examines perhaps the most 'mod-
em' development affecting employees' lives — their
online identity, specifically how their social-media
presence affects their work life, and why the issue
Mike Leahy says using
social media to screen job
applicants carries its own
set of risks.
has caught many employers off
guard.
Point and Click
Social-media use, Leahy " ^ ~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ~
said, "is definitely something
a lot of our clients are concemed about. There are a
lot of areas where companies can expose themselves
to liability."
However, "the general rule of thumb is that
employees have the same rights •— and employers
have the same obligations to them — in the online
world as they have in the real world."
Those rights begin during the application process,
he noted, because of the perception that a hiring deci-
sion might have been made based on information

— age, race, religion, sexual orientation, and the like
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26 T H E M O D E R N O F F I C E WWW.BusinessWest.1.com
MAY 23, 2011
— that should not factor into the process.
"A lot of employers use social media
to screen out employees, but there's some
risk in doing that," Leahy said. "If an
employer takes a look at an employee's
Facebook p ^ e , and if the candidate fails
to secure employment, you won't be able
to say, 'I didn't know you fell into a pro-
tected category.'"
Monitoring the social-media activities
of current employees can also be trouble-
some, because if an employer uncovers
questionable activity that later impacts
the company but does nothing about it,
he could face liability for taking no action.
But what the NLRB has mainly been
debating, Leahy said, is whether social-
media content — postings on Twitter,
Facebook, and the like — really do consti-
a"Ifyou want to say, 'Í work for Coca-Cola, and here's thesecret
formula,'that's not protected. Probably far more
speech is protected than isn't, but I don't think anyone should

be surprised when employees cross the line and are shocked
when they're terminated."
tute the modem water cooler, and wheth-
er speech that would be protected in a
casual conversation should be given the
same treatment in the very public arena
ofthelntemet.
"If employees are communicating
with each other over social media, com-
plaining about their work conditions — 'I
don't like my boss,' i don't like my work
hours,' 'I don't like the terms and condi-
tions of my employment' — and employ-
ers take action based on that, it could be a
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violation of the National Labor Relations
Act," Royal said.
Clearly, momentum is on the side of
employees' rights — with one large cave-
at.

"So long as the subject matter is your
work conditions, that content is gener-
ally going to be protected," Leahy said.
"If it's just out-and-out name-calling
unconnected to employee conditions, it's
unlikely that will be protected."
As evidence, he cited the recent case
of a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star
who was terminated last fall based on a
series of sarcastic Tweets, first mocking
the paper's own headline writers, then the
city of Tucson itself; typical were "Hope
everyone's having a good Homicide
Friday, as one Tucson police officer called
it," and "What?!?!? No overnight homi-
cide? WTF? You're slacking, Tucson."
After several warnings, the report-
er was fired, and the NLRB upheld the
action — even though the newspaper
had no written social-media policy and
had encouraged its reporters to Tweet
— because "he was terminated for writ-
ing inappropriate and offensive Twitter
postings that did not involve protected
concerted activity."
However, employees often don't rec-
ognize the difference in such cases and,
indeed, may not even consider the ramifi-
cations of mixing work and social media.
Royal cited a national survey conduct-
ed in 2009 by Deloitte, an international
business consulting firm, regarding some

of these issues in the workplace, and 53'K)
of respondents said their use of social
media isn't their employers' business.
"Obviously, they might be posting
things on social-media sites that employ-
ers should be concerned about in terms
of their images and reputation, or posting
things that could potentially be confiden-
tial," she said.
In addition, 27% of respondents said
they never consider the ethical or other
business concems in posting photos or
videos online. Clearly, many workers
struggle to define what's legal and appro-
priate as much as employers do.
"If you want to say, 'I work for Coca-
Cola, and here's the secret formula,' that's
not protected," Sullivan said. "Probably
far more speech is protected than isn't,
but I don't think anyone should be sur-
prised when employees cross the line and
are shocked when they're terminated.
"The mistake that employers are mak-
ing is not understanding what's protected
activity," she continued. "Or they have a
policy in place regarding computer use
and electronic information that, perhaps,
didn't contemplate social media when
it was written, and now the policy is
too broad and infringes on that right to
speech. You have to review the policy and
update it as laws and technology change."

That's a challenge for employers who
haven't kept up with the surging pace of
the social-media explosion, she added.
"In the old days, someone would sit
down and write a letter to the newspaper,
and on Sunday employees would read
it, and they'd talk about it at the water
cooler," Sullivan said. "But it's the sheer
amount of information being generated
through social media that's taking people
aback."
Continued on page 28
28 THE MODERN OFFICE www, .com MAY 23, 2 0 n
At the Top
Continued from page 27
both you and your team.
• Persist In his book. Half Time —
Changing Your Game Plan from Success
to Significance, Bob Buford says that
there is nothing in life less important than
the score at halftime. No matter what
your age, your position, your success, or
lack thereof, you have the opportxmity to
do new and exciting things with your life
in the second half. Re-evaluate, reinvent,
reposition, and go for it.

• Have fun. Join the 'Compliment of
the Day Club.' Find somebody doing
something right, every day, and celebrate
it publicly. It's easy to find people doing
things wrong. Change the lenses through
which you view your company. Look for
the good, not the bad. Change your per-
spective — and celebrate!
Bottom Line
For anyone who has been there, the
top spot in a company can be a lonely
place. Typically they have worked hard,
made sacrifices, and dedicated themselves
to their job and their company. Then they
get there and wonder, is this all there is?
Now what?
Both personally and professionally,
senior-level executives need to repeatedly
take stock of where they are. You must
recognize and remember that you didn't
get there alone. You must re-engage your-
self in your life, both at work and at home.
You must remember that your purpose
lies in your service to others, to your
family, to your employees, and to your
customers.
You must care. Do that, and it won't be
so lonely at the top.
Good luck. •

James S. Bain, MBA, is an author, speaker,
consultant, and coach. He is the founder
of Focus on the 5, a division of Falcon
Performance Institute, a consulting and
corporate-training firm focused on pro-
ductive performance; www.falconadv.
com
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Building a Firewall
So, in an environment that seems to
be leaning so heavily in employees' favor
— the Tuscon case aside — what should
employers do? Leahy said they should
start by developing a policy that reinforces
their own established rights, such as pro-
hibiting the misuse of the company's logo,
trademark, photographs, and other pro-
prietary information.
"Certainly, employers are really left
with balancing their interests in main-

taining their reputation and image with
employees' rights under the National
Labor Relations Act," he said. In addi-
tion, employers with a multi-state pres-
ence need to consider that laws governing
workplace conduct can vary by region.
"Where they get into trouble is when
they use a cookie-cutter social-media pol
icy pulled from the Web," Leahy noted.
"The policy needs to be tailored to meet
the employer's needs."
Pizzi said it's an employer's duty to
adequately secure company information
and to adopt and enforce a social-media
policy that adheres to the law and doesn't
punish protected activity.
The use of social media in the work-
place itself may be an easier landscape
to navigate. Royal said, if only because
employers have the right to require
employees to do their job while on work
time. Even those companies that allow

workers to access social-media sites dur-
ing the workday for marketing purposes
should have clearly delineated policies
governing its use.
Pizzi added that there should be nci
expectation of privacy at work, and that
includes establishing vmtten policies reg-
ulating Internet use on company time
and on company equipment — an area in
which the law continues to be on the side
of employers.
"The policy should put employees
on notice that, when they're using tht
employer's property or networks, the)
may be monitored, and that they realh
shouldn't be wasting their time on social
media Web sites, but also should not
unlawfully chill employees' rights," Leah)
said.
Consistent enforcement is critical
Sullivan said. "There's a notion that, il
you're using my equipment, you don't

have an expectation of privacy. But at the
end of the day, we see lots of employers
with beautifully worded policies that hav«.
not been consistently enforced. Then, the
first time you want to enforce the poli
cy about the use of Facebook, someone
might say you're discriminating against
them."
Still, with a carefully crafted polic)
that's enforced fairly, employers should be
in good shape, Leahy said. "When drafting
a policy, it's fair game to say employees are
not allowed to use Facebook when they're
supposed to be working."
Outside the office, however, it's often
a much different story — and one that
may still be evolving, 140 characters at ;t
time. •
Joseph Bednar can be reached at
[email protected]

Copyright of Business West is the property of Business West
and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
while you can't prevent
customers from making negative
comments online about your
financial institution, you can
minimize the risks by creating
clear guidelines about
when and where your
bank will use social
media—and how it
will respond when
criticized.
1 8 j ABA BANK MARKETING | OCTOBER 2011

Building a Sociai
Media Poiicy
BY AMBER FARLEY
B
ANKS CAN DO LONGER IGNORE SOCIAL MEDIA'S
PRESENCE AND THE
IMPACT IT IS HAVING on how consumers interact and gather
informa-
tion online. Even if your bank is not participating in social
media, your
employees are—especially in their personal lives outside of
work. The
chances are good that as you read this article, community
members, customers
and/or employees are talking about the bank in some manner via
social media.
Social media can certainly present banks with risks in the
workplace, regardless

of whether or not the bank is participating directly. Such risks
are manageable as
long as they are acknowledged by the bank and mitigated with a
properly executed
plan and policy. Risks present the greatest threat when banks
fail to acknowledge
their existence. Knowledge of social media risks as it relates to
organization and/or
employee usage will enable your bank to craft a formal, written
social media policy
that is consistent with your overall mission, goals and appetite
for risk. While a
policy won't eliminate negative comments on social media from
occurring, it can
minimize the risks by providing employees with clear guidelines
to follow when
dealing with negative situations.
Social media use has become ubiquitous with today's consumers
and has empow-
ered them to become creators of online content. Before social
media came along,
consumers were primarily forced to listen to messages directly
from organizations
Companies were "pushing" brand and product information to

consumers via tra-
ditional media outlets. Yes, word-of-mouth has always been
involved as well, but
not to the extent that it is today. Social media is an extension of
word-of-mouth
delivery. Today, consumers pull the information they want,
when they want it.
Consumers trust peer opinions, product reviews and feedback
from friends and
family above advertisements or any other form of external
information pushed
to the public by the organization. The rise of social media,
therefore, means that
our responsibilities as bank marketers have gotten a bit more
complex.
OCTOBER 2011 | ABA BANK MARKETING I 1 9
Social media is often thought of in terms of a handful of
well-known social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and
so forth, but it is actually much more than these few sites.
Social media encompasses the Internet technologies that
enable consumers to easily share content online, including

but not limited to, social networks, blogs, videos, photos,
wilds, online reviews, online check-ins and more. There are
thousands of social channels, networks and media tools—and
the list is growing.
Currently the four networks most popular with com-
munity banks are Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedln.
Facebook now has over 500 million users. Over 3 billion
videos are viewed each day on YouTube. Twitter processes
over 155 million tweets per day and Linkedln has over 100
million members. Even though these are the most popular
at the moment, it won't always remain the case. Google+ for
instance, launched in the summer of 2011 and already has
over 10 million users. Social media is a phenomenon that
shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
When your bank starts to develop a social media policy,
keep in mind that the policy is a document used to guide em-
ployees in the use of social media throughout the workplace.
Therefore, there are multiple departments within the bank
that need to be involved in developing this policy. Executives,
marketing, public relations, human relations, compliance,
legal and employees can all contribute to different elements
of the policy.

The rise of social media, therefore, means that our
responsibilities as bank marketers have
gotten more complex.
Below are 10 guidelines to follow when drafting your
social media policy:
1. Purpose
Outline the purpose and scope of the policy as well as explain
how the bank is adapting to various online communica-
tions methods and why the policy is being implemented
in the first place. Explain what the bank considers to be
social media and why the bank is or is not involved with
it directly. If the bank is involved in social media, it should
list the organization's goals and objectives with respect to
social media—as well as the channels that will be utilized.
2. Management Details
Within the management section of the policy, the bank
should clearly state who is approved to speak on behalf
of the bank; who is authorized to create a social media
account for the bank; and who should be the point person
when something needs to be reported or responded to.

Selecting a manager or management team to manage
the bank's social media efforts (if the bank is participating)
can be a daunting task, but it is important to have in place
before initiating social media. Having a detailed plan of
who is managing what aspects of social media will help
keep things calm and organized when an urgent need arises.
It will also provide employees with an understanding and
process of who is "in charge" of social media on behalf of
the bank.
3. Employee Responsibilities
One of the most commonly discussed issues regarding
social media is whether or not employees should be allowed
to access social media channels and networks during the
workday. There are many arguments that can be made by
either side. While there are many perks to banks for allow-
ing employee access to social media within the workplace,
there are some definite risks as well. Allowing employees
to have access to social media while at work could result in
loss of productivity. It could also put the bank in danger,
especially if employees disclose confidential information
or if they leave comments that the bank is held liable for.
Therefore, it is essential that each employee understands
his or her responsibilities as it relates to social media and

the bank.
This section of the policy should clearly outline the
employee's accountability—particularly that he/she is
responsible for his/her own actions. It would also be ad-
vantageous to offer training to all employees who want to
learn how to properly use social media in the workplace.
This training is especially important for those who are
expected to be the bank's brand ambassadors.
4. Proprietary and Confidential Information
Social media prides itself on offering the ability to share
content with others in a manner that is easy and seamless.
Twitter introduced the"retweet." Facebook incorporated
a "like" button. Google implemented the +1 button. There
are also multiple sharing tools with almost any online
content across the Web via applications like "Sharelhis"
and "AddThis."
However, with all of that said, it is still important to
give credit for the origin of content where credit is due.
Most of the social media channels have already planned
for this. For instance the "retweet" shows the post from
the original individual. Share tools usually include a link
to the original article. But to be safe, employees that post

information on social media platforms on behalf of the
bank shotdd be trained to recognize and respect when copy-
right laws comes into play.
On a related note, it is important for each employee
to understand the importance of nof posting confidential
or proprietary information about the bank's customers,
products, internal procedures or other employees. Within
this section of the policy, it would be natural to reference
the bank's other internal documents that the employees
2 0 i ABA BANK MARKETING I OCTOBER 2011
have read and agreed to instead of reinventing the wheel—
for instance, the employee handbook, code of conduct,
business ethics, etc., and make sure they know that all are
applicable to their social media participation.
5. Employee Disclaimers
If your bank is already participating in social media, you
probably have already started to recognize some of your
bank's "brand ambassadors "—that is, those individuals
who live and breathe the brand of the bank and who are

eager to tout the bank's message and point-of-difference via
online media. These individuals can be an incredible asset,
but it is important that the social community (regardless
of channel/network) recognizes the difference between
an employee's social media interactions and those of the
bank itself. Therefore, the policy should address how to
correctly use employee disclaimers.
These "brand ambassadors" as well as any other employee
speaking on behalf of the bank should inform social media
communities that their comments are personal opinions
and do not necessarily refiect the views of the organization.
Naturally, this isn't applicable to your employees' personal
social media profiles, unless of course, they are posting
information about or related to the bank in any way. When
communicating this information in the policy, be sure to
explain that this approach is to protect the organization
while preserving the employee's right and ability to express
personal opinions.
6. Privacy Expectations
It is important to set the expectations with respect to em-
ployee privacy. In this regard, the bank needs to articulate
the organization's right to do the following things: 1. Inspect
social media-based records from company equipment

on company time. 2. Monitor social interactions in real
time. 3. Monitor social interactions in stored files (cache,
history, etc.).
When writing this section of the policy, it might be
helpful to consult with your IT and legal departments
to review federal, state and local laws as they pertain to
privacy. This section of the policy will provide protection
against any claims of breach of privacy that may occur.
7. Violation Consequences
This section of the policy indicates that violations of the
social media policy could lead to disciplinary action and/
or termination. In order for employees to take the policy
seriously, this section is vital. When writing this section,
you will want to make sure to avoid overly broad language
and clearly explain the disciplinary actions that cotild be
taken should an employee disobey.
With that said, there have been community banks that
have been ridiculed in the media by placing overly strict
guidelines on their employees' personal use of social me-
dia. There is a thin line about what you can and cannot
require from your employees regarding their personal use

of social media. Therefore, it would be advantageous to
consult with an attorney before taking any disciplinary
action against an employee in such a case, while keeping
the rules of the National Labor Relations Act in mind.
This act prohibits employers from punishing employees
for discussing work conditions.
It is important for you to know what is being said online
about your bank brand.
8. Respect (Best Practices)
Over the past two years, banks have been working especially
hard to gain or regain their customers' confidence and
trust. Social media provides banks with an unparalleled
opportunity to be honest and straightforward with their
customers. It provides an environment where transpar-
ency and authentic communication is appreciated and
well-received. Therefore, it is vital for the social media
managers, brand ambassadors and any employee to be
properly trained on how to be respectfijl when speaking
about or on behalf of the bank.
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With that said, respect is completely subjective. To
ask employees to "respect" the bank's online brand and
reputation isn't definitive enough for them to walk away
with a clear understanding. Therefore, within this section
of the policy, clarify what your expectations are regarding
respect for the brand/organization, respect for employees,
respect for customers, respectful language, etc. If this
language already exists in another internal document,
then reference that document here.

MONKOEBANK&TRCST
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
See a Sample
Bank Social
Media Policy
By clicking on the website
below, you can see the social
media policy developed by
Monroe Bank & Trust (assets:
$1.3 billion), Monroe, Mich.
This policy touches on
many of the topics and issues
discussed in the main article.
To view the policy, go to:
http://www.mbandt.com/NR/rdonlyres/5E8D4B3B-94D5-
4ACC-814A-C5378E7078D6/0/SocialMediaPolicy.pdf.
9. Date/Employee Signature
Social media laws and regulations are constantly changing.
Keep in mind that the social media policy is proactive instead
of reactive. It is meant to help you during your regtilatory

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