What the key HR problems in this debate & how can organisations seek to address these problems? As more people register & become part of the social networking site phenomenon which includes sites like Facebook & Myspace the higher the risk of it becoming a problem within the workplace & being misused by employees. A survey done by Personnel Today found that internet abuse is now the highest ranked discipline in the workplace.This can bring many problems for the HR department, the use of company computers to go into these sites could mean security is breached & someone who is not supposed to having access to important information, with hacking a big part of internet culture it is quite possible data could be obtained by employees going on the websites.
A way in which the HR department could attempt to overcome this is by installing software that could prevent this from happening; this said with the way in which technology progresses it is important that organisations review this on a regular basis.Deploying an internet usage policy could effect morale amongst staff & make them feel as though they're not trusted; this could also lead to a backlash from the staff due to the amount of people that use the social networking websites. Having a policy can mean more rules for staff ; make them feel as though their been watched, Young ; Case, 2004 describe a policy as 'Internet use policy is a written agreement for employees to comply with the rule of not engaging into the internet abuse activities'Setting up a computer that is solely used for internet use amongst staff could be introduced, this could allow them to access sites during their lunch breaks or even after work, this way it will help towards keeping the morale as high as possible ; mean that they're not accessing these websites when they should be doing something else. Some organisations have been able to tap into the social networking audience by creating company profiles on these sites; this has enabled them to appeal to many different audiences & can help inspiring employees to feel part of the organisation.Productivity can be affected by not deploying the correct internet policy, if there are opportunities for staff to access sites ten it could mean that less work is done & could lead to the organisation losing money.
With the introduction of a stand alone computer this may help to overcome this problem. The content to which employees are potentially available to & viewing could be illegal & offensive.Although most networking sites have their on policies on content it is possible that illegal content is available due to the shear level of information that exists on these sites. A possible solution to this problem could include introducing software that blocks certain content & can also be tracked, this way if broken the right people find out & clear implementation of the filtering software in a policy would worn employees of this practice.The implementation of any policy should be introduced throughout the organisation, a grievance could occur if an employee is caught a& disciplined & if that employee knows that other employees have been doing the same thing, or worse someone in management has been caught on a site his could cause problems, it could be avoided by making it clear that everyone has to adhere to these rules.The use of these could also bring viruses to the company, with the amount of computer viruses that effect computers on a global basis it is likely it could effect a computer, maybe even a piece of software used for a particular role which could lead to a loss of work time within the company.
