Social media and employee productivity

SOCIAL MEDIA has revolutionised communication practices within the workplace by increasing the ability of workers to access information while providing opportunities to expand their social network. Research has indicated that social-media usage has increased tremendously among the Jamaican populace.

The 2015 Information Technology Report revealed that 80 per cent of Jamaica’s population widely used social-media networks. Advocates claim that social media, if used efficiently, may increase workplace productivity by enhancing knowledge transfer among workers. It is believed that social media provides employees with innovative ways of completing work-related tasks and communicating with customers. There is also a view that efficient use of social media can enhance service delivery and build employeremployee relations by improving communication practices within the organisation.

OF SOME BENEFIT

While social media has some benefit to the workplace, evidence exists to prove that social-media use during working hours may be counterproductive. Studies have shown that excessive social-media usage by employees may lead to disruptive behaviour, resource and time wastage, social-engineering attacks, and reputational damage.

Some employees also spend more time on social media than engaging in work-related activities. Unfortunately, the proliferation of social-media usage in the Jamaican workplace has continued to outpace an empirical understanding of the impact these social network platforms may have on work productivity within the private and public sector.

Consequently, we conducted a cross-sectional study focusing on workers to examine the effects of social-media usage on employee work productivity in both sectors. A total of 300 persons from various organisations across within the rural and urban areas participated in the study. The sample consisted of 35.4 per cent males and 64.6 per cent females.

A majority of employees’ ages accounting for 23.4 per cent ranged from 30 to 34 years, those 50 and over amounted to 18.7 per cent, followed by persons between the ages 35 and 39 (15.1 per cent) years. The remaining age groups of employees consisted of persons between 25 and 29 years (13 per cent), 40 and 44 years (11.4 per cent), and 45 and 49 years (11 per cent), with only 21- to 24-year-olds and those below 20 years accounting for seven per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively. Most employees were from the private sector (52.9 per cent), whereas 47.1 per cent were from the public sector, with a 78.5 per cent of the workforce being permanently employed. This is in comparison to the 7.6 per cent having either fixed terms or agency contracts and only 3.8 per cent and 2.4 per cent were part-time and temporary workers.

A majority of employees (93 per cent) utilised social media while at work, with most persons using social media to stay connected with family and friends (60.27 per cent), to network with other professionals (50.03 per cent), to stay connected with co-workers (40.41 per cent), to pass time (31.85 per cent) and to complete job-related tasks (55.48 per cent).

The most popular social-media platforms used by employees in both sectors were WhatsApp (93.03 per cent), Facebook (65.85 per cent), Instagram (45.99 per cent), LinkedIn (29.97 per cent), Twitter (19.86 per cent) and SnapChat (10.80 per cent). Employees mostly accessed socialmedia profiles through their personal cell phone (91.78 per cent), laptop (29.45 per cent), desktop computer (25 per cent), closed user group (15.75 per cent) and tablet (10.62 per cent).

Employees were most likely to log on to social-media network any time of the workday (61.17 per cent), while on their lunch break (39.52 per cent), once they arrive at work (21.31 per cent), once they get a ping (16.49 per cent) or once the workday ends. We found that most employees were likely to spend either 16-30 minutes (30.90 per cent), an hour or more (20.83 per cent), under 15 minutes (20.83 per cent), 31-45 minutes (15.97 per cent) or 46 minutes to an hour (11.46 per cent) on social media each day. Seventy-one per cent of workers employed in each sector stated that their respective organisations did not have a policy to regulate their socialmedia usage.

DISTRACTION

Findings also indicated that the younger persons were most likely to spend more time on social media. Persons above 45 years were more inclined to support social-media regulation. Most participants also claimed that their company does not have an existing policy to regulate social-media usage. Despite the popularity of social media, most persons also believed that it can be a distraction at work.

A central focus of the authors is to identify ways in which social media can be regulated to increase workplace productivity. Efforts to ban social media use during working hours may adversely affect the growth potential of companies that seek to expand their client reach and improve service quality.

More so, several case studies have proven that effective regulation of social media may help companies to increase efficiency while preserving the social and professional interest of workers. The study will be expanded to cover a wider cross section of organisations in the private and public sector. We therefore invite stakeholders that have a vested interest in this study to send an email to lauren.marsh@dec.uwi.edu.

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