Employee Motivation Activity: Brave New World Or Big Brother Summary

When it comes to making decisions about who to hire or who to fire from a company, the employers often struggle a great deal. So how do company owners choose who will go or who will stay for their businesses? One determining factor could be social media. Employers look at incoming and current employee’s social media pages to determine whether or not they are keeping up the appearance and sophistication that that company wants its employees to have. Many employees and outside individuals believe that employers do not have any justification as to wh need to check their social media pages or emails. Employees often feel that doing so is an invasion of privacy and is not warranted. These individuals are incorrect. Companies, especially high profile

With employers monitoring social pages and emails, these circumstances can be stopped or even prevented from happening. In the article “Social Media, Employee Privacy and Concerted Activity: Brave New World or Big Brother?” Jeffrey A. Mello explains, “Employers need to ensure that confidential documents, files, information and/or trade secrets are not disseminated to those outside of the organization who have no legitimate business interests in accessing such information. The challenge here is that electronic transmission of proprietary information is quick and relatively easy but can also be “undone” if detected in a timely manner, justifying the need for vigilant monitoring”(Mello). There are surveys validating Mello’s claims that the sharing of classified information by unhappy and disappointed employees. American Management Association had a recent survey says that 28 percent of employees admit to sharing confidential files or proprietary information(Mello). With the act of monitoring these employees’ emails there would have never been an opportunity to share files to anyone else inside or outside of the company. Employers need to have this safety net to prevent any possible harmful situations from occuring in the

One main reason as to why these individuals disagree with the checkings is because there is a belief that it will lead to discrimination on that particular employee because of things such as race and political views that post on their social media pages. In the article “Why Monitoring Employees’ Social Media is a Bad Idea,” written by S. Kumar, the Arthur states “ People should be able to share their views on gay marriage, for example, with their friends on social media, without running afoul of an employer who disagrees with them. Recognizing that in essence, this is an inadvertent violation of laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, political preference, gender etc, employers should at the very least factor this into their social media policies and put safeguards in place to prevent against it. The harm caused by bias to workers is immense but so are the potential legal consequences for companies”(Kumars). Although this statement is true employers will have to understand that not everyone working underneath them will have the same opinion politically, racially, or with any other situation that may arise during that employee's period of employment. Employers have a responsibility when it comes to having access to their employees’ social media and emails. That responsibility is to be socially aware of the fact that individuals come from