This document summarizes a presentation on social media use by employees. It discusses how social media blurs work and personal life boundaries, with many employees connected to coworkers and supervisors on sites like Facebook. It also reviews cases where employees have been fired for their social media posts and the legal issues around this. The document also discusses organizations' increasing use of social media for candidate screening and ambiguities around interpreting users' online content. Finally, it outlines future research directions such as exploring social media's long-term impacts on work outcomes and conducting more experimental studies.

1. Trick or Treat? Social Media
Use by Employees
Gordon Schmidt
October 30th 2015
MSU BroWnBag Presentation

2. What is social media?
• “a group of Internet-based applications…
that allow the creation and exchange of
user-generated content” (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010)
• Facebook has over a billion active global
users
71%
28%
26%
23%
28%

3. Social Media Life And Work Life Overlap
• 71% of adult internet users/58% of US adult population have
Facebook account (Duggan et al., 2015 Pew Research Center)
• ~60% of employees report having one or more co-worker friend
on Facebook (Duggan et al., 2015; Weidner et al. 2012)
• 25% Facebook friends with supervisor (Weidner et al. 2012)
• Countless groups connecting employees on social media

4. Workers Fired for Facebook
• Looked at workers fired for their
content posted on social media
• 8% of organizations say have fired
someone
• Doesn’t have to be illegal actions- can
be deemed immoral or org interest
• We have looked at legal ramifications of
such cases
• Can be customers or co-workers posts,
too

5. Legality of being Fired for Facebook Posts
• Little to no 1st amendment protection
• Social media posts discoverable in court
regardless of privacy settings
• Employee protections mostly for “Protected
Concerted Activity”
• Employees discussing work terms or conditions
• A Facebook “like” is protected based on current
rulings
• State laws impact, too

6. Perceptions of fairness and opinions on using social
media for terminations
• Examined young adults’ perceptions of social media use in
firing decisions (Drouin, O’Connor, Schmidt, & Miller 2015)
• 42% Facebook/ Twitter posts shouldn’t be used for decisions
• 52% K-12 teacher should be able to post picture of drinking
beer during a vacation (only 24% actually disagreed)
• Only 10% thought posted something would hurt own job search
• So some disconnect between law + perceptions of what is fair

7. Social Media Policies
• Estimates vary, but one estimate is 80%
of companies have a policy
• Many of these policies have been found
too restrictive of workers’ rights to
engage in concerted activity
• Walmart policy is one that has passed
muster
• Question of how well workers know
policies

8. Knowledge of Policies
• Working adults’ knowledge
of social media policies
• 35% did not know if
company had policy
• Those who did had poor
knowledge of it

9. Applicant Social Media Content Impacting
Selection
• Estimates vary (45% to 91%), but a significant percentage of
organizations use social media in their candidate screening
process
• Much of this is done informally without clear standards
• Existing research has been mixed on if this can be effective
• Questions of how screening should be done

10. Ambiguity of content on social media
• How should content be interpreted?
• In press volume on
Social Media in
Selection
Landers & Schmidt
Problem Gambler??
Bad Fashion
Choices?
Bad Mustache Choices & Maybe
squeezing a cat?

11. Social Media and work embeddedness
• Schmidt, Lelchook, Martin (in press)
looked at how % of Facebook co-worker
friends relates to workplace outcomes in
sample of 106 unionized retail employees
• Greater % of co-worker friends, greater
perceived organizational support
• Greater % of co-worker friends, greater
organizational spontaneity

12. Connections in field of I/O
• Potential for connections between I/O Psychologists
• Schmidt & Landers (2010) discussed social media as a means for
discussing identity issues and make connections in I/O
• But in field use still low
• Will talk about some
applications

13. I/O Psychologists on Twitter
• Some usage of
• #iopsych #iopsychology
• Most chatter during
conferences with
#SIOP15

14. I/O Psychology sub-Reddit
• Place for questions and discussion related to I/O
• AMA (Ask Me Anything) with I/O Psychologists talking about
field, advising students and the like

15. Future Research Directions
• More proscriptive versus descriptive work
• What factors have impacted versus documenting existing reality
• Experiments or quasi-experiments would be helpful in this regard
• Longitudinal research
• How do social media connections impact work outcomes over time?
• How do social media interventions have impact?
• International research
• What are country effects?
• How does social media use and function differ by culture?

16. Any Questions or Comments?
•This presentation can be found on Slideshare
•You can also email me at: schmidtg@ipfw.edu
•Or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter:
•https://www.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-schmidt/13/a90/891
•https://twitter.com/iopsychology