Write 150 words of what you thought about this case.

A defining symbol and a source of pride for the United States and its citizens is freedom of speech. The fact that citizens have the liberty to speak freely about any matter, especially the government, is a concept that surprisingly (and taken for granted) hasn’t spread to most countries and often receives punishment. There has been no other time in history that the ability to not just speak freely, but on numerous platforms, has been available and accessible to the fingertips, in seconds. Social media has changed speech forever. The question arises about the protection of this freedom when entities use this information in favor or disfavor to determine an employee's outcome. Companies, organizations, and other entities will often turn to social media as a source of information to help decide the fate of an individual and their ‘role’ in their space, environment, and community.

Roles of a Manager

Among the many roles and duties of a manager, responsibilities such as staffing (hiring and firing), culture setting, fostering healthy teamwork, team safety, and creating a strong team are crucial which require working with people, their beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and much more. To effectively work with and manage employees, knowing the people in your team or department and who they are are among the most important tasks and will allow a manager to be effective in their role and build a strong team. Creating and maintaining a strong team is the manager’s responsibility.

Gathering Intel

Social media serves as a powerful tool to help obtain information on potential hires and current employees. While looking for and keeping the right candidates may be the goal of a position search, ensuring the wrong people are not present in a manager’s team can be equally, and if not, more important. “More employers are finding negative content on social media sites (information that might lead them to not hire a candidate) than are finding positive content. More than half said they had found provocative and inappropriate photographs or information, 44 percent found content about using drugs or drinking alcohol, 35 percent found potential hires bad-mouthing previous employers or co-workers, and 29 percent found evidence of poor communication skills” (Jackson, 2011). The data provided demonstrate that potential red flags can be found by merely doing a social media search. While there may be a fear of legality issues surrounding using one’s post as reason to hire or fire, this is very limited in scope. The First Amendment is instruction for the government and not for other entities. As long as there is no discrimination being used against any ‘protected groups’, companies have a lot of freedom to do as they see fit as a response to one’s use of their speech (Keller and Keller, 2023).

Many candidates and employees have the ability to present themselves well, especially in limited-time interactions. When it comes to interviews and impression- management, “Research conducted in the context of job interviews shows that impressions are formed very quickly and often subtly. Interviewers gather information about job candidates based on their handshake, smile, and manner of dress” (Kinicki, 2021. pg 495). It is clear that any candidate can put on a good show and play upon techniques for a favorable outcome. Social media provides another context in which managers have the ability to gather more information and data to make an informed decision. Managers must be intentional and conscientious about obtaining the right data and go through the full process of gathering information on a candidate or employee (Kinicki 2021).

It is unfortunate that most of the evidence that managers obtain from social media posts is within a negative context. According to Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory, having motivators will bring satisfaction to one's job, instead of simply having no satisfaction from a job. However, hygiene factors must come first, to ensure an environment of “no dissatisfaction”, as an environment of dissatisfaction can be disastrous (Knicki 2021). Removing and preventing employees that will contribute poorly to the work environment and culture is the first step.

When Using Social Media Effectively, How is it Beneficial

Social media has a huge influence on the company whether that may be managers or employees who are a part of the company. Different companies have different management styles and managers all have different roles in helping contribute to the company using social media. Social media management is a way of constructing and organizing content to help develop an audience on the social outlet to bring attention to brand cognition (sproutsocial, 2023). The function of the social media manager is to help create plans to help grow a presence in the social media world by using content innovation, employment planning, campaign methods, and analytics reports (sproutsocial, 2023). By being active in their roles, managers who use social media will develop skills in flexibility, management, originality, curiosity, and critical thinking.

Management should execute a social media policy that clearly states “who, how, when, and for what” the purpose of the social platform use, and the effects of now following the rules (Kinicki, 2021 p. 360). When there’s an implementation of procedures and guidelines within a company regarding the standards for the use of social media during the company’s time, social media will become a great tool for managers to utilize. Although there will always be people who will disregard the rules and regulations set by the company, as long as the guideline for the usage is in place, it will allow employees to have an understanding of what management expectations are because there will be transparency between managers and employees. It is also important for managers to understand that social media will become a great tool to increase productivity among their employees. Managers can utilize the social platform to increase productivity and enrich performance at both personal and company levels which will lead to an increase in job fulfillment, work-life harmony, retention rates, and cooperation in employees (Kinicki, 2021 p.354).

In regards to the contingency theory, what makes a good leader depends on the embracement of techniques and demeanors that corresponds to the context of the work environment and situation (Cortellazzo, Bruni, &Zampieri, 2019). Instead of fearing that the employees use the platform for their own benefit during working hours, leadership roles should use those social platforms as a way to monitor their employees. Take email as an example, on average, company specialists spend almost 30% of their day reading and responding to emails (Kinicki, 2021 p. 358). This communication tool can become a great benefit for managers to see who is working and responding to their emails and are actively present in their workplace from the employees who are not.

Social media platforms are a great tool for managers to manage who to hire and fire from the workplace. According to “The Role of Leadership in a Digitalized World: A Review” by Laura Cortellazzo, Elena Bruni, and Rita Zampieri (2019), managers have an important task of grasping the real significance of digitalization by containing and retaining talents through the use of social platforms by reaching out and connecting and encountering with their employees. As much as employees should know when and how to use social platform responsibility, it is as important and beneficial for company leaders to know when and how to suitably use the information for the hiring and firing process. When it comes to hiring employees, social media is a great tool to help observe for the right employees. Social media has become so prevalent for recruiters to evaluate employment applicants that a survey has discovered that 70% or more recruiters and employing directors scour applicants’ social media sites (Zhang, Van Iddekinge, Arnold, Roth, &Lievens, 2020). Take LinkedIn as an example, it is a site tailored more toward professionals looking to network with each other. The social platform has information such as resumes and previous job histories that managers could check out to see a potential candidate for their job position.

In 2009, CareerBuilder performed a survey for businesses operating social media to filter potential employees and 18% of employers encountered content on social sites that affect the need to employ the candidates (Jackson, 2011). Social platforms are a great way for managers to discover their candidates’ character, the truth about candidates’ credentials, creativity, and communication. Not only can social media screen potential candidates, but it can also defer them from hiring a candidate if they have insufficient articulation aptitudes, any lies about their credentials, defame their colleague or customers, and discharge personal details regarding their workplace (Jackson, 2011). In addition, supervisors could use these social websites to terminate their workers if they found content that damages the company’s prestige, reveals secret data about the company, and infringes the social media policy (Lopez, 2023). Grounded on evidence-based decision-making, managers are able to construct a finding, be notified of a judgment, and defend a conclusion for the company based on the public data and proof sustained (Kinicki, 2021 p.437-438). If it is within the company’s policy, managers have the right to fire their employees if it has an impact on the company as long as it is not under protected class such as sex, age, and race.

Research

A case study was done on job seekers to conduct a survey in regard to their employment status, employment inquiry, and individual experience while also providing their Facebook page. There are four different varieties of information that were concluded based on their Facebook social account. The first class was their demographic variables that are being shielded by the U.S. employment law. The second contains a report about their private life which in some states prohibits discrimination based on that information. The third classification falls under what news organizations and managers use to assess the applicants such as their schooling and work-related background. The fourth category consists of concerns for institutions such as drug use, brutality, and criminal activities (Zhang, Van Iddekinge, Arnold, Roth, &Lievens, 2020). The first two classes are covered by the law, so management and recruitment cannot use those pieces of information against the workers. The third and fourth classes are what recruiters and managers mainly look for. According to the result of the study, job-appropriate variables such as schooling and work-affiliated internship or aptitudes are associated with more advantageous evaluation (Zhang, Van Iddekinge, Arnold, Roth, &Lievens, 2020).

Social Media Helps Brings Communities Together

Social media has the ability to bring the communities of customers, employees, and the company’s employers together. Brand communities bring usefulness to labels such as supporting customer associations, boosting client advocacy, and collecting sources for creative developments and commerce ideas (Chavadi, Sirothiya, Menon, & M.R, 2023). This will allow management and the company to interact with customers and their community to work together to create ideas and help better the company using social platforms to communicate. Social media used by employees also has a favorable side to it such as raising morals and culture belonging, evolving professional networks, and enhancing communications with buyers, patrons, and stakeholders (Lupton and Michael, 2017). Social platforms bring multiple benefits to the company and the management team when it is being utilized correctly. It brings people from around the communities and different levels of people within the company to socialize and interact with each other.

Conclusion

Similar to any other subject matter, there is always a good and bad to the topic. The key takeaway from this is that although it may seem like it has its disadvantages for managers to use, it also has the ability to connect the companies together. It brings more awareness to managers, employees, and the company by allowing them to utilize the platform ethically with a sense of awareness. With the rapid advancement in the technological world, social media will never go away, so it is better to embrace the change and allow managers to appropriately use social media as a way to hire and fire their employees as well as bringing the communities together.