How is social media being used in the workplace

Abstract

Social media is often used in hiring procedures to screen applicants, but little is known about the ways in which social media is used by employees in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to delve deeper into the reasons why employees are using social media in the workplace, as well as to learn more about what outcomes are associated with social media policies in the workplace, specifically how social media policies are related to employee trust and job satisfaction. Data were collected using a survey methodology. A questionnaire was distributed to 135 employees via MTurk from various organizations to gather their perceptions on social media use in the workplace. The results suggest that most employees are using social media in the workplace and the most commonly reported reason for social media use was to take a mental break from work. Furthermore, it was more common for employees to work in an organization that had social media polices versus organizations that did not have social media polices. Lastly, there were not statistically significant differences among social media use in relation to job satisfaction nor organizational trust. Implications are described last.