The Use of Social Media for Private Concerns in Organizations: An Interview Study

Social media (SM) enables interactions between people where and whenever they choose. Many organizations have open access to SM and employees have access to such tools during working hours. The objectives of the research were to find out: whether and for what reasons the interviewers used SM for private concerns during working hours and what was the attitude toward such use. The study was undertaken 2013–2015 using open-ended in-depth interviews (the qualitative part of a larger study, the quantitative part was presented at IC-ININFO, Madrid, 2014). Different employee groups were chosen with purposive sampling in eight organizations and interviews were held with executives, HR managers, specialists, and general employees, one from each workplace. The main findings in the interview study were that employees used a considerable part of their working hours for personal use of SM for various reasons. The attitudes toward such use were different according to what position the interviewer held. Work is increasingly performed outside the office and the boundaries between work and private life are becoming increasingly unclear. For this reason, executives need to assess the success rate and performance of their employees and to look at their productivity and worth rather than questioning where and when they have worked or how long it has taken. The findings could be of value to organizations that want to evaluate SM use in their organization and how it impacts their people at work. It can also lay a foundation to further research in the field.