Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Employee’s Productivity: A Study of the Use of Facebook by National Communications Authority (NCA), Accra

Abstract

Social media has gained eminence in recent times as a vast majority of organizations have gravitated towards it for several activities. Evidence shows that the most popular social media networking site in the world is Facebook due to the fact that it has the largest users globally. Furthermore, it is evidential that management of some organizations have adopted the use of social media as the medium of communication at the workplaces. The employees use Facebook for both personal and organizational communication. Using quantitative and qualitative methods coupled with secondary sources, this study investigated the rationale behind some authors arguing that the use of social media at the workplace during working hours has a positive impact on employee productivity while others are of the view it has negative impact on employee productivity. In view of this, this study sought to explore the impact of the use of social media on employee productivity at National Communications Authority (NCA). Findings revealed that although, the employees use Facebook to promote the brand and activities of NCA, chat with friends and family, upload personal photos and videos, seek for a new job, interact with workers in other companies and chat with colleague employees; nonetheless, there is no evidence of it boosting the productivity of employees. This study therefore concluded that in as much as there is no evidence to show that the use of social media during working hours has not contributing to boosting employee productivity, it therefore recommends that those at the helm of affairs at NCA should make sure they limit the use of social media at the work place. Management of NCA should come up with various social media policies and trumpet them so that the employees will be aware of them and abide by them.