The Influences to Contemporary Employment Relations by the Implications of Social Media - Research Proposal Example

Discuss the influences to contemporary employment relations (between employer and employees) by the implications of social media or other internet-enabled technologies within the workplace in UK Contents Contents 2 Rationale and Research Questions 3 Literature Review 4 Methodology/Methods/Sample 7 Methods: 8 Sampling: 9 Ethical issues 9 References 10 Rationale and Research Questions The employee relations form a major area of discussion for many research proposals. Especially for students this topic is very interesting as it helps to analyze the various areas related to employee relations. The mode of employee relations has changed in the 21st century. With the emergence of social media technologies it has helped to renovate the relation building between the employer and the employee. The social networking sites such as twitter, face book etc has brought major changes in the workplace of UK and even across the globe. These networking sites have helped to transform various political, social, and institutional practices. The analysis of workplace includes understanding the methods that are invented and adopted by the organization, focusing more on employee engagement, trust and work culture, and even methods on how to develop, manage motivate and reward the employees so that their productivity is increased (Alexi, 2011). This topic would help the students analyze the effect of evolution of social media on the employee relations in the workplace (in this proposal the main focus is on the workplace of UK). The social networking sites provide a complex web of interactions and even involve conflicting interests and motives of the stakeholders. The proposal even highlights the wider impact of the internet enabled technologies on the employee relations in the workplace of UK such as privacy, monitoring of workers etc. The research questions would be such that it closely related to the topic so as to analyze what is the effect of the social media technology on the employee relations in the workplace of UK. There can be three possible questions for this research proposal – To what extent has the workplace relied on social and digital technology. How do employers manage social and digital technology used from employees in the work place The employment relation’s issues that arise for employers and employees from the use of social media respectively such as Face book or Twitter in the workplace. Why? The first question would help to analyze what is the impact of the social and digital technology this would even help to reflect on the aspect as to how much in today’s scenario these technologies has made the employee relations depend on them (BBC ,2010). The second research question highlights the integrated mechanism that the organizations follow so as to manage all the newly developed technologies that is used by the employees in the workplace. This would help in analyzing the various models of integrated approach that is adopted by organization in 21st century. Finally the last research question is to judge the various issues that are rather the consequences of usage of the social media (Bobby, 2006). This question would highlight the impact these new technology causes in the workplace and the extent to which it affects the relation between the employee and employer. Literature Review Over the last decade the use of internet and social networking sites has shown a substantial growth. The major share of the growth has been the use of web based technology in the activities related to work place. A survey was carried out in UK in 2003 to analyze the impact of this web based technology on work place, and it was found out that 61% of the surveyed population made a massive use of the internet in the work place in UK (Bibby, 1996). Face book is considered to be the most popular networking sites and is second ranked in terms of internet traffic after Google. YouTube is the next in rank after face book in relation to the internet traffic and after that is twitter. Though the survey data proves it evident that there has been a growth in the social networking sites but it has not provided any specific information whether such a growth had any effect on the employee relations in the workplace of UK (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, pp. 27-29). My Job Group conducted a survey in UK in August 2010 which stated that the use of these social networking sites is affecting the productivity of the employees (ONS, 2010). The social media usage by the employees has created a high level of attention on the employer part; this is through high profile individual disputes between the employers and the individuals (Diamond and Freeman, 2002, pp. 569-596). Employees nowadays even maintain web bloggers through which they can discuss or reference their work in some way or the other. There has been a major shift from such web bloggers to social networking sites where the employees reference their work in some way or the other (Bibby, 2000). There are two different kinds of usage by employees of social media which has led to disciplinary action. The first is about uploading videos or posting some comments that are directly linked with the misbehaviour of the employees at the workplace. This kind of usage highlights more of the issue related to the behaviour exposed in the social networking sites rather than the usage of these sites (Dutton, Helsper and Gerber, 2009, pp. 134-135). The second kind of usage is using these networking sites as a platform which the employees use to share their ideas or opinions regarding the organization in which they work. The rise of new technology has given the chance to the employees to access information regarding the employment law ad employment rights compared to the scenario in the past. The information related to these rights has links in YouTube, twitter etc. This has resulted into positive development in the employees as they have the required knowledge related to their rights and dealing with certain issues that might occur in the work place (Keefe, 2005, pp. 67-69). This in turn might also impose serious challenges to the managers and the organization. Employees might prefer to gather information from web based technology rather than communicating directly with the employer or any trade union (Fiorito, Jarley and Delaney, 2002, pp. 76-77). This accessibility has a major disadvantage in the form that the employees might misunderstand the information provided in these sites and it would in turn make the relations between the employees and employers more difficult (Dawson, 2002, pp. 72-73). The aspect of integrated communication technology provides an opportunity to employers to monitor the employees. The methods for monitoring employees include radio frequency identification, voice technology and wearable computers, video monitoring, satellite tracking, telephone monitoring, telephone call monitoring etc (Greene and Kirton, 2003, pp. 56-57). The employers might be further tempted to track the activities of the employees even outside the workplace of the organization. According to Bibby in his studies in 2006 it highlights three concerns of employee monitoring such as stress caused by constant monitoring, safety and health issues regarding the technology, to prevent unions from organizing through collective employee representation through employee monitoring, and taking privacy measures towards employee rights (Hogan and Greene, 2003). The legal approach towards the employee monitoring involves principle of transparency, principle of finality, principle of necessity, and principle of proportionality. The social networking sites tend to blur the boundaries of traditional relationships (Parker, 2007, pp. 106-107). The social networking sites such as face book can disrupt relationships, hierarchies, and traditional boundaries between the employees. The employees may not be willing to share their personal lives with the colleagues in the workplace (Lucking and Pernicka, 2009, pp. 311-328). Baldas (2009) stated that the online relationships can pose serious disputes between the employees and managers. These kinds of online relationships can trigger legal claims, harassment, wrongful termination, and discrimination, and even pose accusations of favouritism. These kinds of issues can be well addressed by the employers by agreeing on a conduct policy with the employees about what is expected out of them whether online or offline. The question still remains the same whether such a policy can be enforced and that it should be able to clearly determine whether the employees can accept friend request of their subordinates or not. The review of the various authors states that there is significant impact that such social networking sites cause in the workplace by breaking down the traditional boundaries and resulting more of favouritism which would eventually result in to decrease level of productivity within the employees (Punch, 2006, pp. 181-183). However the previous research has not been able to clearly state that whether such technology creates such harmful impact that can be abandoned. The literature review do not have details regarding how the managers really come up with such advanced technology though it has highlighted certain aspects of adoption of new technology in the system (Valentine, Fleischmann, Sprague and Godkin, 2010, pp.87-108). All modernized organizations rely on digital and social technology this is mainly because of the faster accessibility. The traditional communication helped the workplaces in maintaining a distinct hierarchy whereas these modern technologies initiates more of transparency but even disrupts the personal lives of employees and employers. It results into more of miscommunication between the employees and the management and hence affects the employee relations which are very necessary so as to maintain a healthy work environment. Methodology/Methods/Sample 1. There are different forms of methods in the research process. It depends on the research topic that which forms of analysis would be suitable for it (Kothari, 1985, pp. 23-24). The recommended methodology for this research process would be gathering information both through primary and secondary sources. The approach towards this research is phenomenological as the outcome of the process can be anything. Keeping positivity towards a preferred outcome for the research would automatically hinder the research methodology process (Bryman, and Bell, 2003, pp. 117-118). The topic is based n highlighting the realistic views so as to capture exactly to what extent these social networking sites hinder the employee relations. Methods: There will be two methods of collecting data – primary research and secondary research. The primary research would focus on gathering information through focus group study. The focus group study would comprise of 4-5 groups each having 5 individuals working in specific organizations of UK (Kumar, 2005, pp. 46-47). The focus group study would help to analyze the views or opinions of different employees in relation to the topic without any influence of the interviewer. The risk concerned is that the respondents being involved in the focus group may not reveal their exact opinions regarding the topic. If not through focus group information can be gathered through questionnaires designed for survey in various companies in UK. The secondary research would be conducted through journals, magazines, books, and even sources from the internet as e-books or published data which gives more exact data compared to that of the books (Maylor and Blackmon, 2005, pp. 102-103). The potential problem could be lesser availability of information regarding the topic of research proposal. Sampling: The sampling would be considered based on the focus group study and for the questionnaire. The sample size would be 25 respondents for the focus group study. The individuals would be employees and employers from different organizations in UK and having different career background (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003, pp. 92-93). The location for the survey would be UK. For the questionnaire the number of individuals to be surveyed would be 1000 respondents. These respondents would be working professionals of different workplaces in UK (Creswell, 2003, p.120). Ethical issues There exist several ethical issues associated with the use of social media. The social media exploitation has made the employers adapt to various technology so as to safeguard the organization from any kind of opinions or statements posted by the employees on the social networking sites. However the ethical issues can obtain importance only when the people associated with these sites follow the ethical perspective. To follow a research process the researchers should ensure privacy towards the information gathered from various primary sources. This research would deal gathering information from various primary sources such as survey and focus group study. The employees would be disclosing their opinions regarding the topic only when they feel secured that their individual names would not come under the research proposal (Thomas, 2003, pp. 172-173). The primary information would be dependent on the views that the employees possess towards the impact of social networking sites on the employee relations. The survey would even encompass managers and employees from the same company so the researcher needs to have their ethic strong so that they do not expose the opinion and create conflict between the employee and the management. References Alexa. 2011. Top sites in the United Kingdom. Available at: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/GB [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. BBC. 2010. ‘Facebook hits 500m user milestone’ BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10713199 [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. Bibby, A .2000. Negotiating the new economy: The effect of ICT on industrial relations. Available at: http://www.andrewbibby.com/docs/negotiating.pdf [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. Bibby, A. 1996. Trade Unions & Telework Report for FIET. Available at: http://www.andrewbibby.com/telework.html [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. Bibby, A. 2006. You’re being followed: Electronic Monitoring and surveillance in the workplace. Available at: http://www.andrewbibby.com/ict.html [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. Boyd, D.M., Ellison, N.B.2007. ‘Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol.13(1),pp. 27-29. Creswell, J. W., 2003. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. California: SAGE. Dawson, C. 2002. Practical Research Methods. New Delhi: UBS Publishers’ Distributors Diamond, A., Freeman, C. 2002. ‘Will Unionism prosper in cyberspace? The promise of the internet for employee organization’ British Journal of Industrial Relations. Vol. 40(3), pp. 569-596. Dutton, W., Helsper, E., Gerber, M . 2009. The Internet in Britain 2009. UK: Oxford Institute. Fiorito, J., Jarley, P., Delaney, J .2002. ‘Information Technology, US Union Organizing and Union Effectiveness’ British Journal of Industrial Relations. Vol. 40(4), pp. 117-119. Greene, A., Kirton, G. 2003. ‘Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists’ Industrial Relations Journal. Vol.34 (4), pp. 56-57. Hogan, J., Greene, A. 2003. E-collectivism: On-line action and on-line mobilization. Available at: http://www.btinternet.com/~davidbeaumont/msf/hogan.html [Accessed on 2nd April 2014]. 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R. 2003. Blending Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods in Theses and Dissertations. London: Corwin Press. Valentine, S., Fleischmann, G., Sprague, R., Godkin, L. 2010. ‘Exploring the ethicality of firing employees who blog’ Human Resource Management. Vol. 49 (1), pp. 87-108. Read More