Employee Use of Social Media for Private Affairs during Working Hours

Abstract

Many organizations have open access to social media (SM), granting employee access at work. The purpose of the study was to find out whether the respondents used SM for private reasons at work, how much time they devoted to such use, and what was the attitude of managers and the employees themselves toward such use. The study was undertaken during 2013-2014 using a questionnaire survey. Open-ended interviews added a third dimension. The main findings were that employees used a considerable part of their working hours for personal SM use. The majority felt that managers objected to such use but an even larger majority believed that such use by their own was unacceptable.