Social Media and Employees and Employers - Article Example

? Social Media and Employees and Employers Social Media and Employees and Employers Social networking has been created with a view to share information easily and conveniently. Throughout the years, it has grown and diversified. Currently it’s competing with e-mail and text messaging. Various internet sites have emerged like MySpace and Facebook. They are designed to create a profile containing personal information that others can view. These networks facilitated individuals to create social networks with thousands of people. A while back, these websites posed little known threat to personal privacy, but users comfort level changed. Individuals started to build online persona. In reality, some information is very confidential to the extent no one would want to share with their family and certainly not with a professional hiring manager. Individuals are using this new data base in of personal information in questionable ways ethically. The lack of regulations, clear guidelines, has led to dissemination of information across the internet for a purpose other than that intended. Employment screening is one of the more infringements to the rights to Facebook users. To understand fully the current ethical issues on Facebook, it’s vital to comprehend history and evolution of social networking website (Engler & Tanoury, 2011) Facebook evolved in the month of February 2004 by a scholar of Harvard. Its main purpose was to enhance communication among students through an easy access on online network. Surprisingly in just weeks almost half of Harvard undergraduate’s class were signed in as members. Zuckerberg who created Facebook took on the help of two of his friends, so as to expand Facebook for it looked like a profitable venture. They established its headquarters in Palo Alto in the same year. Facebook received a large amount of investment capital, which enhanced its, rapid growth across the country to hundreds of colleges and millions of member’s. Initially Facebook was only for college students at select universities. Due to its small target group it left a large market space for other social networking sites, particularly, MySpace to attract and incorporate those excluded (Engler & Tanoury, 2011) These automatically helped MySpace gunner more users than Facebook. In order to increase their users, Facebook introduced high school users, which boosted their increase in membership. Still Facebook was experiencing marketing problems. Its users at the completion of college would feel out of place and transfer their account to a more appropriate network such as work network. Pressure mounting on then from capital banker’s lead to them allowing not only scholars but anybody who wanted membership. These saw their users rise rapidly universally. Facebook and MySpace are two competitive media networks. MySpace is seen as having a more chaotic appearance due to its pages being business oriented and customizable features. Facebook, on the other hand, is viewed as a more private network compared to MySpace. In Facebook users are more open in giving their biography. Contrary, to that, MySpace users use fictions names rather than their real identity. Facebook had a reputation of baring unwanted viewers as compared to MySpace. However new policies have made it possible for employers to access valuable information of the applicant that was once unavailable to them (Engler & Tanoury, 2011). This article notes why potential employees, as part of hiring background check, monitor current employee’s social media sites. It also explores if an employee should be made aware of his information being accessed before it takes place. Finally, this note will propose a solution for the competing interests of individuals, Individuals desiring freedom and the employers desiring quality employees. Employers dig information about an applicant to ensure the best candidate is selected. One fit for the vacant position, in that he is capable to meet the organizational goals. To obtain such information, a variety of ways are utilized to obtain the data depending on position to be filled. Study conducted to determine why employer looks for applicant information on the social network revealed they did so to know the personal trait of the client. It also helped to predict the future job performance of the individual. Individual posts on Facebook show how one thinks and plays a major role in deciding whether or not to hire the individual (Stevens, 2012). Employers seek employees who will be able to increase productivity and minimize expenditure and liability (byrnside, 2010). Insurance companies conduct lengthy research compiling information to value a policy and the inherent risk of a client. Companies initiate backgrounds checks in an effort to acquire additional information regarding the potential job candidate. They perform these necessary tasks to protect themselves and their organization. The do this by mitigating risks through practicing a distinguishable degree of care when evaluating job candidates (Kennedy & Macko, 2009). Background check is also done to determine if the applicant has faced any legal issues. Employer seeks applicant criminal records. There is no federal statute limiting employer investigation of an applicant, so long as employment decisions based on this information are consistent with business necessity. Similarly, employers also do conduct credit reports on applicants though this has certain legal obligation. That an employer may not obtain credit reports of applicant before being granted consent by the applicant. Applicant is supposed to be notified about this, and that a credit report was used to dictate eligibility of hiring the candidate. Medical examinations and drug tests are also checked. However, employees may need a medical examination after making the offer of employment. Which hiring in this case is conditional upon the satisfactory results of the exams? Drug testing of applicants is permissible so long as it’s uniformly administered to all applicants. This is genuinely accepted even by the judicial system (Byrnside, 2012). The current method, of employer gathering information from notably, social networking sites, raised concern of breach of ethics by the employer. However, these claims should be analyzed in light of the general rule of employment. Basically the rule allows employees to hire anybody on grounds of a good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all provided they don’t violate any specific law in the process. Individuals claim they should be first notified before information about them is accessed. Courts tend to differ in opinion; they consider since the information available online being public. Since information posted on the internet is public, the rule of the thumb prevails. This rule states that if it’s on public domain its fair play besides what compliments that rule is that information on these social networks is voluntarily disclosed. To be on the safe side applicant should assume that anything posted on social networks is not private. However even as employees have access to this information, an adverse decision based on social networking profile may violate discrimination laws. This law prohibits one be denied a chance of employment based on the applicants: race, color, religion, sex, and nation origin or candidates disability respectively. Social networking’s sometimes have proved to provide much more information than is required. The two main problems that employers should be cautious about are the issue of authenticity and too much information. On too much information readily available and accessible, many employees may be tempted to ignore this risk of their endeavor to gain as much information as possible on a personal level (Brynside, 2013). Too much information can be harmful, this is because there are things the employer is better of not knowing. It’s particularly true when it comes to defending discrimination claims. The other issue is of validity of authenticity. This may look like an obvious point to many; employees may overlook this crucial point of concern, due to the excitement about this new employment screening tool. They should be aware that clients create fake, flattering, or explicit social networking profiles. Solution and Recommendation There’s no direct solution to the problem caused by the employers researching applicants on social network sites. Applicants also want the freedom to express themselves without fear. Fear that employees may find this information and turn down their application based on social media. However employees want to know as much as they can about the client to make sure he is best fit for the job. One way to do this is to follow desire to its fullest, in that the applicant will be given the freedom they desire. Employees should be discouraged from basing their decision to hire an individual from looking information on social networks (Kennedy & Macko, 2009). Though the latter solution possess a challenge for employees wouldn’t admit to looking, and finding such evidence can be difficult but it’s a solution worth trial. Employees found to violate the latter rule should compensate the candidate who did not get hired. Compensation should be in the form of monetary value. It’s also not clear that the court would be willing to agree with the terms. Applicants should also operate in view that employees will be checking their social network. Therefore, everything they post they should exercise caution in what they should or shouldn’t post. They should also adjust their privacy setting to restrict one viewing their profiles. Clients should also consider searching their names on social networks to see what information appears, this prevents fraudulent accounts, which may limit, their chances of employment. Employers, on the other hand, should try to balance, need for the information against that of the candidates privacy (Brynside, 2013). They may need to consider the importance of the information gathered about a candidate’s social behavior in relation to his job performance. In most cases, negative information about an applicant’s social networking profile is irrelevant to job performance. The employer may also use social networks to his advantage, by searching for candidates based on certain educational background. Common interest that the employer thinks would make the candidate fit for the company. Lastly they should also bear in mind that they were once young. They should understand that indiscretions were once easily forgotten with time. Conclusion As social networks are growing in popularity, employees are adapting to them and using them continually for applicants background check. Through these sites employees have access to information about applicants. Such information shouldn’t be used in decision making of hiring and individual, for it presents a variety of legal issues. References  Englar, P. & Tanoury, P. (2011). Ethica Publishing Inc: Book Contents. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ethicapublishing.com Steve .T. web. Accessed on 8 April 2013 http://www.leadingsmart.com/2012/05/stalk-people-before-you-hire-them.html  Brynside.I. web. Accessed on 8 April 2013  http://www.southernlawjournal.com/2010 Kennedy, .N. & Macko, M. (2009). Social networking privacy and its effect on employment opportunities. New York: New York publishers Read More