EMPLOYEE AWARENESS OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY, GUIDELINES, USES AND LIMITATIONS AT WORK: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

This paper review aimed at understanding the various results generated from previous studies conducted on the awareness of employees in terms of social media policy, guidelines, its uses and limitations at work as very few studies have focused on this matter. The researchers conducted a systematic review of evidence of the various findings of previous studies conducted by researchers from different countries to further examine research gaps, emerging trends, and further study which may be conducted which may add to the existing stock of knowledge. Resources came from various sources which are scientifically based. The review found that most of the employees found social media as a valuable tool in their productivity and performance at work. It has made their job more satisfactory as they can reach more people with no boundaries in time and in place. However, there are few studies which said that social media became a distraction at their work. Studies also revealed that employees are aware on the pros and cons of using social media at work as this might damage the reputation of

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EMPLOYEE AWARENESS OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY, GUIDELINES, USES
AND LIMITATIONS AT WORK: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Jessie I. Quierrez
jessiequierrez@pup.edu.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1292-3753
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
Ann-Lyn O. Vinuya
annlyn_ortiz@yahoo.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1709-7331
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
Jennifer D.G. Munsayac
jdgmunsayac@pup.edu.ph
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
Researchers
December 2019
Abstract
This paper review aimed at understanding the various results generated from previous
studies conducted on the awareness of employees in terms of social media policy,
guidelines, its uses and limitations at work as very few studies have focused on this
matter. The researchers conducted a systematic review of evidence of the various
findings of previous studies conducted by researchers from different countries to further
examine research gaps, emerging trends, and further study which may be conducted
which may add to the existing stock of knowledge. Resources came from various
sources which are scientifically based. The review found that most of the employees
found social media as a valuable tool in their productivity and performance at work. It
has made their job more satisfactory as they can reach more people with no boundaries
in time and in place. However, there are few studies which said that social media
became a distraction at their work. Studies also revealed that employees are aware on

the pros and cons of using social media at work as this might damage the reputation of
their company if not properly used. Studies on the policies and limitations on the use of
social media are still very scarce and this needs further exploration of future
researchers.
Keywords: Employee awareness, Social media, Policy, Guidelines, Limitation at
work
Introduction
Social; media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the
creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of
expression via virtual communities and networks (Kietzman & Hemkens, 2011; Singh,
D.P. & Dwivedi, 2013; Drury, 2008). The use of social media has become an integral
part of the public and personal lives of civil servants and emerged into mass use.. And
because of its inherent ability to reach large number of public, it is widely used to
convey message to build public opinion and awareness; share and interact with each
other; user-generated content (Deka, 2013; Boyd and Ellison, 2008; Utz, 2010;
Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014). Thus, it must responsibly be used to improve
productivity and governance; it is imperative to formulate a policy that will guide
government agencies and employees on the responsible use of social media and
ensure that such will redound to global competitiveness, performance accountability,
shared governance, organizational and personal effectiveness, and service excellence
as well as counterpart government transformation (Goldstein and O’Connor, 2000;
Hanna, 2010). This study was utilized to explore the employees’ level of awareness of
the employees on this matter as very few studies were taken to further understand
where they stand on this subject.
Objectives
Through this review based on evidences found on previous studies, the researchers
hope to achieved the following: (1) To understand the different views of employees
about social media policy, guidelines, uses and limitation at work; (2) To explore the
employees’ level of awareness on the social media policy, guidelines, uses and
limitation at work; and (3) To develop a research hypothesis that will be used for a
similar study which will be conducted by the researchers.
Emerging Trends
Various studies done by researchers have focused on various organizations’
management considering social media to be included in crafting their policies, include

such in their company guidelines and employee contracts (Cox and Rethman (2011;
(Stafford & Mearns, 2009; Hutley, 2009; Aguenza et.al, 2012 ), and provide clear
information on the limitation of its uses, which will reflect employee understanding of
the policies and guidelines (Bennett, 2010). As other studies said, avoiding or
controlling social media use in the workplace may reduce productivity and may result to
legal litigation, (Skeels & Grudin, 2009; Bennett, 2010; )
Methodology
Browsing from various websites available in the internet, a total of 34 peer-reviewed
completed studies and some literatures was reviewed, particularly on the results and
conclusions of the study, a careful systematic evidence-based approach was made by
the researchers.
Discussions
Findings showed that in the perspectives of social networking, people are aware that
the basic knowledge of others’ way of communications plays an important role in
providing people of useful information associated to personal, interpersonal and other
related information which will help them positively in their interactions to people across
nations. (Leonardi and Meyer, 2015; Benson, et.al, 2015; Bucher, Fieseler &
Suphan 2013) Also, previous studies revealed that employees seem to agree that social
media and social networks are part of the characterization of human beings or rather
human behavior and that human beings need to fulfill the urge to communicate and
interact with people they know (Golder, Wilkinson and Huberman,2007), and is
considered by many as now a normal part of life that is why it attracts millions of users
worldwide (Buffardi and Campbell, 2008). Furthermore, in this age of social media,
professionals should comprehend that it is not enough to know how an individual can
properly retrieve and process information in various social settings, but more importantly
is to rationally manage with information overload, uncertainty, and annexation (Bucher,
Fieseler & Suphan, 2013) .
Social media no doubt becomes a powerful tool of communication in and out of the
workplace (Holland, Cooper & Hecker, 2016) and brings plenty of advantages such as
it improves communication (Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014) builds relationships,
connects and allows for information, of common interests, and issues-sharing or
knowledge transfer all over the world (Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D. and Zhang, X., 2016;
Zoonen, van der Meer, Verhoeven, 2014) ) in split seconds. In other circumstances
social media can be used to find life partners (Golder, Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007;
Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D. and Zhang, X. 2016; Bennet, 2010). Specifically at the
education area, faculty members considers social media as an effective instructional
tool which will help bring knowledge to students as they are actively searching at the
internet and significantly help them in learning collaboratively. (Lory, 2010; Hill et.al,

2004; Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011) In fact, over fifty percent of teenagers
between twelve and seventeen are using social networking every day, perhaps
suggesting they wouldn’t be able to really think without the internet (Farias, Paskor, and
Walter, 2015).
On the other hand, studies also presented negative thoughts about social media use
such that this becomes a distraction in performing their tasks and productivity,
(Warnakula and Manickam, 2010; Mastrangelo et al., 2006; Sherman, 2009) distort
work-life balance, exacerbate tensions, and threatens personal privacy, (Walden, 2016)
affects personal and office relationships and personal relationships (Herraiz, 2015),
increase narcissism (Wallace and Baumeister, 2002; Treem & Leonardi, 2013 ).
Various studies conducted have mentioned all the same things about social media
awareness and very few dealt with policy, and guidelines, uses and limitation at work of
it. One example of this is an article of Bertot et.al (2012) where it focused on the impact
of policies on the government social media usage as well as trust, security, participation
and recordkeeping, yet it did not touched the employee awareness on the various
subjects which is the focus of the current study. Pence (2011) stated that many
organizations can no longer avoid accessing social media using computers in the
workplace, therefore, management should come up with their own tactics to control their
employee on the use of social media. Likewise, It was also concluded from the different
studies conducted that there is a need for the management of every organizations to
balance any actions of the employees and need to monitor the use of social media for a
quality and reliable exchanges of information to positively be used for organization’s
communication, public relations and community-building and improve organizational
processes. (Moorhead et.al, 2013; Rokka, Karlsson & Tienari, 2014; Macnamara &
Zerfass; 2012; Treem & Leonardi; 2013). Moreover, studies conducted by Bizi (2017)
concerning HR executives’ dilemma about social media policies, Leftheriotis and
Giannakos (2014) on the impact of social media use in work performance, Dreher
(2014) and Charoensukmongkol (2014) on social media and the world of work, did not
focused on understanding employee awareness on the use of social media policies,
guidelines, and limitations at work. Lastly, the reviews conducted by Stafford & Mearns,
(2009) on the previous studies done by various researchers, it revealed that employees
are very much aware on the good and bad effects on the use of social media but does
not present enough evidences that “organizations were able to adapt clear employee
guidelines and policies on how the use of social media be controlled, filtered, and sets
its limitations at work, which shall not hamper the smooth operation and damage the
good reputation of the organization, as well as brings negative effect on the
performance and productivity among employees”.
Conclusion
Basing the reviewed literature and studies, none of those were able to tackle the
employee awareness on social media policies, guidelines and limitations at work.
Instead, it presented various suggestions that organizations may consider including
social media on their existing company policies and guidelines, making employees

aware of the pros and cons on the usage of it and its impact not only on their work
productivity as well as on their personal aspect and on the image that may be created of
the company they work for. It is therefore concluded that a deeper study of this matter
will bring clarity and answer questions on how aware are the employees on the policies,
guidelines and limitation at work on the use of social media.
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