Is employer monitoring of employee social media justified

Social Media This paper discusses the importance of social media today with regard to the communication. Essentially, itbrings into focus the impact of private policy for employees in companies and social networking.
Social networking
Social networking websites are a considerably new format that gives people chances to post personal information that can be seen by private friends and the public also. Moreover, managers may desire to view these sites with or without authorization and further use the information in hiring and retaining employees (Elzweig, 2009).
According to Elzweig and Donna, managers have the liberty to use information from the social media to monitor employees’ social network sites to guard themselves for the possibility of being sued of negligent hiring, and the retention laws suit that may be filed against their companies. Never the less, such information must be weighed against the expectations of the privacy by the person posting the information.
Of importance to note is that, social networking has become the dominant online behavior. Many users have developed their own web pages where most of the information that is not found on the resume can be found there. In return the companies go into the web pages to seek for more information. Managers have used these web pages to make decision on whether or not to hire job candidates (Elzweig, 2009).
Never the less, the right to privacy is highly determined by the settings of the account and the information that is provided by the site regarding privacy conditions. Hence, there is need for reading and understanding the terms and conditions that are given by various web pages in regard to privacy for every individual (Elzweig, 2009).
Private Policy
However, the use of social media has limits, which have been considered by most of the companies that have put in measures that safeguard the privacy of the employees in honor of sound practice and ongoing communication. In essence, Widger and other Human Resource managers at companies that entails mature privacy programs have continually put emphasis on the importance of privacy policy , a component that contribute to effective privacy management. This ensures that policy management that has broad level actions makes policies meaningful to employees through employee education. Hence, the importance of managing privacy policies and real world scenarios related to privacy during work force communication and orientation (Wigner, 2010).
According to Widger, lack of private policy and its mismanagement can lead to severe consequences such as, loss of revenue, loss of productivity, and legal or regulatory actions. Moreover, there could be witnessed declines in brand and share holder value, recruiting and retention problems. Corporate privacy by and large covers customer and employee privacy with inclusion of job applicants and the benefit providers that are meant to protect the privacy of client companies’ employees. In fact, most European Union expects companies who are doing business within its member countries to strictly adhere to the principles of employee privacy.
Never the less, several companies generate two kinds of private policy. The employee facing policy provides principles that are relatively high in terms of governing the organization’s collection, use disclosure, safeguarding and disposal of employee data. On the other hand, an operation policy is directed internally for people who are in a position to access and see employee data in order to execute legitimate job functions (Wigner, 2010).
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References;
Elzweig, B. (2009) SAM Advanced Management Journal –Autum. Using Social Networking Website in Hiring and Retention Decisions.
Wigner, B. (2010). Private Matters. Safeguarding employees’ privacy requires an effective policy, sound practices and ongoing communication. Vol . 55. No. 2.