Would you want your Facebook profile used by potential employers? Do you have a sneaky scroll through Instagram at your desk or send personal emails from your work computer?
A Queensland University of Technology business school study is hoping to find out what boundaries exist between social media use in the workplace and in private.
Associate Professor Paula McDonald is working with Scotland’s University of Strathclyde to develop a report from the study's findings, which will provide recommendations for both employers and employees about how to manage social media use.
The study, targeted at employees across Australia and the United Kingdom, asks what fair social media use is in the context of the workplace, what employers are doing in terms of policy, the kinds of social media use people use in a typical day and whether they have been reprimanded for social media use.
But Professor McDonald said the study also focused on the growing issue of public profiling, where employers seek information online about a job applicant
“From the employee’s point of view, this might be over stepping the mark as they might consider their online profile to be part of their private identity," she said.
“Employees have also raised concerns about their private profile because they’ve don’t know what information has been gathered and employers might not be able to use that information legitimately in terms of what the job entails.
“Profiling also opens up the potential for discrimination, meaning that the decision to hire someone could be influenced by their gender, race, status etc.”
