HOW AND WHY DO EMPLOYEES REACT
TOWARDS THE USE OF WORK-RELATED SOCIAL
MEDIA OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS?
THE FADING BOUNDARY BETWEEN WORK AND NON-WORK LIFE
Marjolein Kunst
S2670941
m.kunst.2@student.rug.nl
Master Thesis
Faculty of Economics & Business
MSc BA Management Accounting and Control
Supervisor:
dr. S. Girdhar
Submission date:
16-01-2020
ABSTRACT
Social media has been continuously growing for the last couple of years and its influence also reached the supermarket branch. Working at a supermarket used to mean that you left your work behind as soon as you left your workplace, the supermarket. With the use of social media nowadays, leaving your work behind becomes a much tougher job. Employees are continuously bothered with their work via social media outside working hours and with this development the boundary between work and non-work life is fading. Current research thoroughly studies the use of non-work-related social media within working hours, the use of work-related social media within working hours or even the use of non-work-related social media use outside working hours, but the use of non-work-related social media outside working hours is a topic that has been studied very little. To add to this small field of research, this research will shed a light on how employees respond to the use of work-related social media outside working hours, and with that, if there is a variation in this response noticeable. Eleven semi-structured interviews have been conducted at several locations of a Dutch supermarket chain and the data gathered with these interviews is analyzed with an inductive constant comparison analysis. Results show that there are various responses mentioned to cope with the influence of the use of work-related social media outside working hours. Some responses were more popular among younger employees and other responses were more popular among older employees. Above that, the intensity of the response also varies, while some employees just turn off their notifications, other employees just leave the WhatsApp group. Besides the responses towards the use of work-related social media outside working, another interesting insight has been gained with this research, which is that there is a relatively worrying lack of sufficient social media policies within the supermarket chain. This lack of social media policies can cause a number of mental illnesses among employees. Finally, there are some possible solutions mentioned by the employees to recover from the imbalance between work and non-work life. Concluding, this research contributes to current literature on non-work-related social media use by exploring the variance in responses towards the use of work-related social media use outside working hours.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract 1
Table of contents 2
Introduction 3
Literature review 5
Social media and work-life balance 5
Social media consequences and policies 6
What can we expect? 7
Methodology 9
Data collection 10
Data analysis 11
Results 12
Pressures to use work-related social media outside working hours 12 Various responses towards work-related social media use outside working hours 14 Results of the use of work-related social media outside working hours and emotional
exhaustion 16
Provided resources 18
Possible solutions 19
Discussion and conclusion 21
Implications 22
Limitations and further research 23
References 25
Appendix I: Interview procedure – EN 29
INTRODUCTION
Social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram keep growing, the number of users on these platforms increase every year. Users in The Netherlands count a number of 11,5 million for WhatsApp, 10,8 million for Facebook and 4,1 million for Instagram (Van der Veer et al., 2018). These numbers are based on a total Dutch population of 17.081.507, corrected by the 15+ age target and 97% who use the internet, which will be a research population of 13.870.408. From 2011 on social media has been continuously growing, for example, Facebook has grown from around 40 percent in 2011 to almost 80 percent in 2018. Above that, according to research done by Van Beuningen & Kloosterman (2018) more than half of the people (53 percent) in the category of 25-35 year say that they spend 1 to 3 hours a day on social media. This can be seen as a logical consequence of the results shown in the research of Longstreet & Brooks (2017), in which they explain that stress has an influence on life satisfaction, which in turn has an influence on social media addiction.
Partly due to these changes in the use of social media, several studies have already concluded that the border between work and non-work life is shifting and sometimes disappearing. For example, McDonald and Thompson (2016) describe how personal social media usage sneaks into the workplace and on the other hand how employers might use social media to ‘scan’ potential employees’ private life and background. Continuing on this statement, people therefore are already conscious about how they present themselves on social media and what suits their public best. They then present the most favourable image of themselves (Sanchez Abril, Levin & Del Riego, 2012). Strauß & Nentwich (2013) add to that by stating that the work as well as the non-work life needs to have space to expand and complement each other, since actions in the work life influence actions in the non-work life and the other way around. However, when social media keeps on expanding its influence, the boundaries between work and non-work life keeps fading, and with that fading the mutual support of these both worlds also fades.
& Califf, 2016). Besides the effect on job performance, Bucher, Fieseler & Suphan (2013) state that work-related social media use within the workplace can also cause an oversupply of possibly relevant information, which in its place causes stress for the employee. This oversupply of possibly relevant information creates a challenge for the employee to mentally cope with overload, invasion and uncertainty with regard to the processing of information in the workplace.
Van Zoonen & Rice (2017) state correctly that new information and communication technologies may be liberating and constraining at the same time. In their research, they found a paradox that shows that social media is positively related with autonomy as well as work pressure. This work pressure causes a more intense work experience. After evaluating the paradox, it is concluded by Van Zoonen & Rice (2017) that “employees seem more likely to be burdened by the use of social media for work than benefit from it”.
Last but not least, since it is confirmed that today’s technology plays the biggest part in the work-life imbalance of the employee (Holden & Sunindijo, 2018), employees can experience the feeling of continuously working due to ongoing contact with their work via social media (Fleming & Spicer, 2004). Fleck, Cox & Robison (2015) already showed in their research that the use of work-related social media use outside working hours can cause emotional exhaustion, lower work and life satisfaction and potentially even burn-out. How employees respond to the use of social media can vary per individual (Jamieson, Mendes & Nock, 2013, Shaikh et al., 2004, Baqutayan, 2015).
Based on the aforementioned research and literature, a literature gap emerges regarding employees’ responses towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours. The use of social media for a work-related purpose outside working hours has been studied by only a few researchers, since all the literature is focused on social media use within working hours. Therefore, studying this specific topic will be relevant to expand the current field of literature and since it is not clear how and why employees respond specifically towards work-related social media use outside working hours. Concluding, studying the immature field of work-related social media use outside working hours with a focus on how this affects employees and how they subsequently respond to this is something that has not been studied before, even though it can bring forward helpful outcomes for both the employer as well as the employee.
Therefore, the following research question arises, and will be answered in this study: How and
why do employees react towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Nam (2014) already discussed that the use of several technologies (e.g. social media) has an impact on one’s work-life balance. The use of these technologies let the boundary between work and non-work life fade. This makes some employees willing to work more in their non-work life, but a lot of employees prefer a strict separation between work and non-work life. For these employees, the fading of the boundary between work and non-work life might result in job stress, job dissatisfaction, and a higher perceived workload (Nam, 2014). Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) define social media as “… a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.”.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Boundary theory, which was originally invented by Nippert-Eng (1996), suggests that the strength of the boundary between work and non-work life depends on the balance between these two different ‘lifes’. When there is an imbalance between work and non-work life, the boundary is fading. This confirms statements made about work-life imbalance increasing psychological distress like emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and depression (Sirgy & Lee, 2018) and the use of social media playing the biggest part in the work-life imbalance, because social media allows employees to be in continuous contact with their work, whether they like it or not (Holden & Sunindijo, 2018). Bulgur, Matthews & Hoffman (2007) extent the boundary theory and state that lower flexibility and higher permeability are possibly related to more work-life interference, and thus more work-life imbalance. Since this study on the responses of employees towards the use of work-related social media use is focused on a supermarket, low flexibility is expected, since it is not possible for the employee to physically take their work home. With that being said, more work-life interference could be expected. Finally, Park & Jex (2011) report that employees with higher work-role identification are more often experiencing psychological work-family interference. So, if the employees have a clear image of what is expected from them and they feel responsible for acting this way, they are more likely to experience work-family interference.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONSEQUENCES AND POLICIES
Holland & Bardoel (2016) studied the smart as well as the dark side of the technology, because the use of technology does not only have negative consequences. Some of the smart sides are higher productivity, commitment, and engagement. However, the so-called dark sides are loss of social cohesion and information knowledge transfer and a decrease in motivation and engagement. All of these sides to the use of technology should be kept in mind when evaluating the effectiveness of the use of technology. Van Zoonen, Verhoeven and Vliegenthart (2016) elaborate on this dark side by their study on work-life conflict. They explain that work-related social media use is a source of imbalance and conflict. Using personal social media for work in combination with insufficient social media policies provided by the firm can cause emotional exhaustion. Schultz et al. (2015) already emphasized the need for appropriate and suitable social media policies in an era of fast developing participation in social media and therefore already called organizational leaders to follow up on this request. Research done by Peters et al. (2013) confirms this statement and adds that social media is too often being managed as other media used by the organization, which also might cause insufficient social media policies.
also concluded that excessive use of social media during working hours leads to emotional exhaustion, which is an aspect of burnout. However, the extent to how big of an influence this has on employee’s emotional exhaustion depends on their mindfulness.
A study done by Van Zoonen & Rice (2017) suggests that the use of personal social media for work-related purposes is associated with a more intense work experience, and thus more potential for the development of stress. Not only stress could be a potential consequence of the use of work-related social media outside working hours, lower work and life satisfaction could also be a potential consequence. As stated by Fleck, Cox & Robison (2015), the use of work-related social media outside working hours brings forward consequences as mentioned before, like emotional exhaustion, lower work and life satisfaction and potential burnout. They also describe how employees started using multiple devices with social media application on it to manage their personal and work-related social media. Workplace stress can also be caused by forcing the employee to use a certain media which can be considered less suitable for the job than another media (Stich et al., 2017). Moreover, Salo, Pirkkalainen & Koskelainen (2018) confirm with their study that the use of social media contributes to concentration, sleep, identity and social relation problems.
Managing all the above-mentioned consequences of the use of work-related social media outside working hours is a challenge many employees expectantly are struggling to handle. Only Duxbury (2004) precisely describes how employees should deal with work-life imbalance. She provides the reader of her paper with a list of actions to take in order to recover their work-life imbalance, some of the many suggestions that were made are: be organized, have goals, recognize that balance takes work – work at it, and find a supportive partner. Besides focusing on the employee, Duxbury (2004) also addresses the employer and states that in the new millennium the employer should make human resource management a high priority.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?
When studying the research question “How and why do employees react towards the
use of work-related social media outside working hours?”, expected results can point in different
with the boundary theory, it is important to consider whether the use of work-related social media outside working hours is self-inflicted or forced by the employer, this distinction can make a huge difference in interpreting the results.
According to the literature, which is mostly based on social media use within working hours, whether it is personal or work-related, it is expected that employees who are regular users of social media do expect a certain amount of pressure caused by this medium. What kind of response this pressure might cause can vary per individual. According to Jamieson, Mendes & Nock (2013) one method of responding to stress or pressure, called reappraising arousal, is a method that shifts negative states to positives states, which helps to maximize performance. One of the coping mechanisms mentioned by Shaikh et al. (2004) is going into isolation, which includes eliminating all contact, especially via social media. Baqutayan (2015) perfectly describes to sorts of coping with stress or pressure, there is problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping is a more practical manner to deal with stressors and really tries to change the current situation wherein the stress or pressure is experienced. While emotion-focused coping is more focused to manage all forms of emotional distress to make the individual feel better about the situation without actually changing anything about the actual situation.
METHODOLOGY
To be able to provide an answer to the research question as stated in the introduction (“How and why
do employees react towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours?”) qualitative
research has been conducted. Qualitative research answers questions about perspectives, experiences and meanings from the interviewees point of view (Hammarberg, Kirkman & de Lacey, 2015). It is most suitable for gaining an in-depth understanding about a subject and for that reason qualitative research has been chosen as the method of research in this study. Within this qualitative research eleven semi-structured interviews, spread over a period of a month from the beginning of October 2019 till the beginning of November 2019, have been conducted. Besides that, secondary data has been used to substantiate arguments and findings. Semi-structured interviews are the most widely used interviewing format for qualitative research and generate deep insights into the case in question (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006). Secondary data involves the re-use of pre-existing data derived from previous research studies and can be used to verify findings (Heaton, 2008).
DATA COLLECTION
The questions used in the semi-structured interviews can be found in Appendix I, as well as the Dutch translation of these questions, which can be found in Appendix II. These questions are based on information provided by secondary data and guidelines provided by Britten (1995). The use of these guidelines in combination with a fixed interview guide improve the reliability of this study. Branthwaite & Patterson (2011) describe in their article perfect why qualitative research is the best approach to do research in an era of social media. They describe three main critical factors of influence, namely, the direct interaction, the facility to listen and attend to underlying cases, and the dynamic characteristics of an interview. The interviews have been conducted among people with various positions within the firm and different ages, spread over a period of a month from the beginning of October 2019 till the beginning of November 2019. Before the interview would start, the interviewee was asked to sign a consent form, which was also signed by the researcher. This consent form emphasizes the integrity of the interviewer and the interviewee, and the confidentiality within this study. Afterwards, when the interviews were transcribed, the transcripts where shared with the interviewees, to increase the validity of this study.
In table 1 is the variation in position displayed and in table 2 is the variation in age displayed. The team leader is responsible for directing and motivating his or her team of stock clerks of cashiers. Together with their team they make sure that the supermarket looks well cared for and that customers leave the supermarket happy and satisfied. The assistant supermarket manager has many similar tasks and responsibilities like the supermarket manager. They have the direct daily lead of the whole team of employees within the supermarket and analyze the data and systems that provide information about the prosperity of the supermarket. The supermarket manager has the final responsibility regarding everything that happens within the supermarket. Just like the assistant supermarket manager he or she has the direct daily lead of the whole team of employees within the supermarket and analyses the data and systems that provide information about the prosperity of the supermarket.
Position
Supermarket
manager
Assistant
supermarket
manager
Team leader
Total
Male
0
1
3
4
Female
4
2
1
7
Total
4
3
4
11
Age
18-35
36-50
50-65
Total
Male
3
1
0
4
Female
4
2
1
7
Total
7
3
1
11
Table 2
The questions of the semi-structured interviews are built up as follows: the first questions are easy questions to get to know more about the interviewee, the subsequent questions introduce the interviewee to the topic and test their knowledge about the topic, the next questions dig deeper into the topic to get understanding of the impact of the topic. When doing the interview, it was important to keep in mind that the interview itself must not be long-winded, because the interviewee might lose interest before the important questions were asked, which might lead to unusable data. The type of questions that were asked varies from credential verification questions to opinion questions. An example of the credential verification question would be: “For how long are you working at this supermarket?”. An example of an opinion question would be: “How do you feel about the use of work-related social media outside working hours?”.
For the secondary data analysis several databases were addressed (e.g. Web of Science, SmartCat, Google Scholar). The research for literature has been used to substantiate arguments and findings, provide explanation, and define the research gap.
DATA ANALYSIS
RESULTS
The results that came from the analyzation of the gathered data either confirm or contradict the statements made in the literature review. Which kind of pressures force employees to use work-related social media outside working hours are exposed. The variance in the responses among employees to this use of work-related social media outside working hours is explained, how one just turns off their notifications and how another one just leaves the WhatsApp group when they feel like it. Above that, in what way the supermarket provides her employees with sufficient policies regarding this subject is also discussed and criticized. These surprising insights ensure that the attention has been drawn towards this field of research even more.
PRESSURES TO USE WORK-RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS
Previous literature explains that the pressure to use work-related social media outside working hours can come from outside, for example, one’s superior might ask them to engage in this kind of social media use, or it can be a written down regulation of the firm to which the interviewee has to stick to (Fleming and Spicer, 2004). As mentioned before, Fleming and Spicer (2004) conducted a study that showed how the employer expected employees to be available 24/7, either by continuously contacting the employees or by expecting them to participate in work-related activities outside formal working hours. Something similar to these results came forward in this study, namely, two interviewees described a scene that recently took place in which they met their new district manager. During this meeting they were actually forced to scan a QR-code with their personal smartphone which added them to a WhatsApp group of all the district members. The participation in this WhatsApp group was not a choice, but an obligation, not participating was out of the question, which again is a perfect example of the forces of the employer as described by Fleming and Spicer (2004).
“I had our first meeting with our new boss, due to the reorganization, and there was a poster with a QR-code when we entered the room which you had to scan in order to join the ‘district WhatsApp group’.” … “It is just like “Here is the QR-code, you need to use it, there is no way around it, no discussion possible”.” (interviewee 4)
Several interviewees also mentioned that they believed that their work-related use of social media outside working hours was a part of their job, even though this was not explicitly stated in their job description. This means that the force to use work-related social media outside working hours does not always have to come from outside, it can also be an urge that comes from inside the individual self. As stated before by Park & Jex (2011), high identification with the job-role could lead more often to a higher work-life imbalance, which could be the case for the employees who had the opinion that the use of work-related social media outside working hours was part of their job. However, in contrast to the research done by Park & Jex (2011), there was no evidence of employees who had a higher job-role identification also experienced more work-life imbalance. Worth mentioning is that employees who had the opinion that work-related social media use outside working hours is part of their job, did not automatically enjoy the use of work-related social media outside working hours, but they had a point of view from which they saw it as obligated and being part of the job description. If they would not participate in the use of work-related social media outside working hours, in a way they would fail their job. Even though they were not forced to use social media for work-related purposes outside working hours, they still did, it was self-inflicted.
“I also believe that it comes with my function of supermarket manager.” (interviewee 2) “I also think that this is kind of part of my position as supermarket manager, that I should be available, and that people should be able to ask me questions outside working hours.” (interviewee 6)
“I think that it is part of the job. You have a certain position, which comes with a certain responsibility.” (interviewee 11)
Finally, besides forces originating from the headquarters or the interviewees themselves, there has also been given an example of an operational manager instructing and encouraging employees to contact their colleagues, even outside working hours, to discuss faults they might have made during their previous shift.
VARIOUS RESPONSES TOWARDS WORK-RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA USE OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS
With all these forces having an influence on the interviewee’s use of work-related social media outside working hours, it is still important to be able to keep your work and non-work life separate, since Sirgy & Lee (2018) already stated that a fading border between work and non-work life can cause emotional exhaustion, anxiety and even depression. Above that, Nippert-Eng (1996) stated that the most important aspect that keeps the boundary between work and non-work life strong is the balance between these two lives, one can conclude that when there is imbalance between these two lives, the boundary will fade. These fading boundaries and imbalance between work and non-work life increase psychological distress like emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and depression (Sirgy & Lee, 2018). Since the use of social media plays the biggest part in the work-life imbalance, because social media allows employees to be in continuous contact with their work, whether they like it or not (Holden & Sunindijo, 2018), the interviewees were asked how they manage to keep their work and non-work life separated. Four of them answered that they would just ignore the messages sent to them, another four would instruct the colleague contacting them to call the supermarket instead of messaging them and the others would just turn their notifications off or leave the WhatsApp group.
“I ask them to call the supermarket instead.” (interviewee 2)
“At the moment when I am outside work, I ignore work.” (interviewee 8) “I turned off all my notifications.” (interviewee 10)
disappear. However, this is only a one-time solution, which has to be repeated every time an employee contacts the interviewee. A more concrete solution to the bothering via social media is leaving the WhatsApp group. Finally, any significant differences regarding the gender or position of the interviewees did not came forward from the interviewee data.
Response
Ignore
messages
Instruct to
contact
supermarket
Turn off
notifications
Leave
group
Gender
2 male, 1
female
1 male, 3 female
1 male, 2 female
1 male, 1 female
Age
30-37
27-48
22-27
37-51
Position
TL & SM*
all
all
TL & SM*
*TL = Team leader, SM = Supermarket manager
Table 3
Simply ignoring messages or turning off one’s notifications is almost similar to Shaikh et al.’s (2004) ‘going into isolation’, where all ties with the outside world are cut, the outside world would in this case be the supermarket. Above that, the emotion-focused coping as described by Baqutayan (2015) also matches the ignoring of messages and turning off of one’s notifications, since emotion-focused coping is purely emotion-focused on making the individual feel better at a certain moment in time without really changing anything about the actual situation. On the other side, leaving the WhatsApp group would be a good example of problem-focused coping, also described by Baqutayan (2015). Since leaving the WhatsApp group is something the interviewee does in order to actually change the current situation wherein the stress or pressure is perceived, as described by problem-focused coping.
“Then I left that group because I did not want to receive that kind of messages, I don’t feel like it and I don’t like it.” (interviewee 4)
“However, sometimes when I am free for a longer time, I leave the WhatsApp group for that period.” (interviewee 1)
“Of course, I receive WhatsApp messages from different people, which I find annoying since you are then still busy with work and always available, which is so not necessary if there are people at work who can also help them out.” (interviewee 9)
“I noticed that I was always busy with work, whether I had a day off or not. You can’t let it go, since you still see the messages popping up, and when you know the answer to a question you respond automatically.” (interviewee 7)
RESULTS OF WORK-RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA USE OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS AND EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION
The results of the use of work-related social media outside working hours differs per interviewee, some experience more effects than others. The red line in all the interviews was that all of the interviewees do receive WhatsApp messages outside working hours, however, some handled this differently than others. Surprisingly, the job role that the interviewees were responsible for within the supermarket had a different influence on the number of messages they received outside working hours. For example, when the interviewee was responsible for the working schedules, they experienced more messages then when they were not responsible for the working schedules. An explanation for this increased bothering via social media when the interviewee was responsible for the working schedule could be that their work influenced more employees than when they would not make the working schedules. So, whenever an employee would have a question regarding the working schedule, they would contact the person responsible for the working schedules, whether they would have a day off of not.
“But when my colleague who makes the work schedules was on vacation, who I covered for, then I noticed that it increased very much. Employees send you more messages.” (interviewee 11)
“WhatsApp was a very easy way to also contact me when I was outside working hours.” (interviewee 7)
However, some interviewees had to admit that, while they did not enjoy being bothered outside work via WhatsApp, they were guilty of acting is exactly the same way. They admitted that they also used WhatsApp to contact their stock clerks or other colleagues to ask them questions regarding work situations.
“I also use it myself when I have to make the working schedules, then I contact my colleagues saying “autumn break is coming up, who can work extra shifts?”.” (interviewee 1)
“However, the downside is, when I need people for example for the bakery, I also just send a message in the WhatsApp group. You can wonder what is okay and what is not.” (interviewee 6)
Whether or not the use of work-related social media outside working hours has an influence on the interviewee’s well-being is also something to take into account. Just like Sirgy & Lee (2018) already described, fading boundaries and imbalance between work and non-work life increases psychological distress like emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. Adding to that, not only fading boundaries and imbalance between work and non-work life has an influence on the interviewee’s well-being, Van Zoonen, Verhoeven and Vliegenthart (2016) emphasize that insufficient social media policies also cause emotional exhaustion. Even though none of the interviewees mentioned emotional exhaustion or something similar to that, almost all interviewees mentioned that they did not like being bothered with work-related social media outside working hours. They described it as being annoying, unnecessary and some interviewees even described a feeling of ‘continuously working’.
conflict. Both loss of social cohesion and conflict is something that is something that does not benefit the interviewee’s relation with friends and family.
“Well, yes, sometimes my wife asks what I am doing, then I have to answer that I have to answer to a WhatsApp from work.” (interviewee 1)
“Well, sometimes my husband asks “Are you on your phone again?”.” (interviewee 4)
PROVIDED RESOURCES
Policies regarding the use of work-related social media provided by firm were most of the time perceived as being ambiguous or employees did not know about the existence of any policies at all. Besides that, ten out of eleven interviewees admitted that they did not know whether or not there were any services provided by the firm that could help them cope with the effects they might experience from the use of work-related social media outside working hours.
“Does the supermarket provide any service that helps employees cope with potential stress or pressure caused by the use of work-related social media?” “I don’t know. That would be something I have to look up.” (interviewee 5)
When it comes to the above-mentioned policies regarding work-related social media use, the interviewees answered and explained some policies regarding work-related social media use within workings hours or policies regarding the reputation of the firm. However, policies specifically regarding work-related social media use outside working hours was no knowledge of. Van Zoonen, Verhoeven and Vliegenthart (2016) and Schultz et al. (2015) both emphasized the need for sufficient social media policies, especially in an era of fast developing technologies like the one we are in right now, since insufficient social media policies might cause emotional exhaustion. A possible cause of these insufficient social media policies is that social media itself is too often being managed just like other media used by the organization (Peters et al., 2013), while social media does not function like other media used by the firm and should, for that reason, also be managed differently to prevent insufficient social media policies.
The lack of sufficient policies and services to help the employee cope with work-related social media can be a cause of emotional exhaustion, but it can also be the reason for employees to create their own ways in dealing with work-related social media use outside working hours, as described above under the subheading “VARIOUS RESPONSES TOWARDS WORK-RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA USE OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS”, above that, it could also be the reason for employees to start searching for solutions to deal with work-related social media use outside working hours, as described in the next section.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
With the lack of policies regarding the use of work-related social media outside working hours and the lack of services provided by the firm that could help the employees cope with the effects they might experience from the use of work-related social media outside working hours in the back of our mind, solutions to improve this situation are desired. During the interviews several interviewees from themselves mentioned some possible solutions to the problem of being bothered with work in their free time. Surprisingly, several interviewees even mentioned the same possible solution without being questioned about it. This solution would be a smartphone that is solely located at the supermarket for purposes like promoting the supermarket via social media, providing the employees with an option to contact the supermarket via WhatsApp instead of calling and communicating with the other district members. By using this smartphone instead of one’s personal smartphone, the interviewee can only be bothered by any of these social media purposes within working hours. Fleck, Cox & Robison (2015) already mentioned something similar to this solution in their own research, namely that employees started use multiple devices with social media on it in an attempt to manage their work and non-work life.
“But now I am considering searching for an old phone of mine and just put a SIM-card in there and use it as my phone for work. That way I can just leave this phone at work and I will not be bothered with that kind of stuff in my free time. Because you never really have a day off, at least that is my opinion.” (interviewee 4)
“Maybe they should provide one phone for the whole supermarket that can be used for these kinds of purposes. I think that that would be a good idea.” (interviewee 7)
smartphone from work. That way we can only be bothered by this while we are actually at the supermarket.” (interviewee 3)
One interviewee even mentioned that they already had some experience with the above-mentioned solution. Since this solution already has been tried before, it should not be too difficult to implement it again or on more locations.
“A smartphone that stayed in the supermarket with internet on it with which we could contact our employees with. Then you did not need to use your personal phone anymore to contact employees or respond to employees. Which was very easy, since you were only available during opening hours of the supermarket. The border between work and non-work life was pretty clear.” (interviewee 8)
Besides the solution which called for a smartphone at the work location, other solutions or points of improvement have also been mentioned. One solution would be that the headquarters would make the Facebook website available on the computers within the supermarket. With this solution the employees should not have to use their personal smartphones anymore to post on Facebook and answer customer questions. The point of improvement would be to provide the supermarkets with clearer policies regarding the use of work-related social media outside working hours, since this is still lacking. To contribute to the composing of appropriate social media policies, the list of actions to take in order to recover from their work-life (im)balance as presented by Duxbury (2004) can be used as guidance.
“Above that, the supermarket could support the local supermarket Facebook pages by making Facebook available on the computers here, because you can’t access anything now. This means you have to do everything with your own phone.” (interviewee 2)
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The use of work-related social media outside working hours, whether employees experience it as being forced on them or they believe it is part of their job role, is something every individual deals with in their own way. While the response to the use of work-related social media outside working hours differs per interviewee, all of them made it clear that they found it annoying and even sometimes had the feeling that they never had a real day off due to this continuous contact via social media. This corresponds to the research done by Van Zoonen & Rice (2017) which suggests that the use of personal social media for work-related purposes is associated with a more intense work experience, and thus more potential for the development of stress. Again, this feeling of a more intense work experience can differ per individual, but it can be of influence on how they intend to respond to the use of work-related social media outside working hours. With WhatsApp being by far the most influential social media platform when it comes to the use of work-related social media outside working hours, some of the interviewees answered that they would just ignore the messages sent to them, others would instruct the colleague contacting them to call the supermarket instead of messaging them and again some others would just turn their notifications off or leave the WhatsApp group. This study has shown that leaving the WhatsApp group or ignoring the messages sent to them are more popular responses towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours by a relatively older group of employees. On the other hand, turning off one’s notifications has shown to be a more popular response towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours by a relatively younger group of employees. Last but not least, instructing the employee who is contacting them to call the supermarket instead of messaging them is a response towards the use of work-related social media outside working hours that is generally used by employees of all ages.
that the supermarket reviews and updates their social media policies to prevent this from happening, since prevention is better than cure.
Another interesting insight that is discovered with this study is that several interviewees mentioned from themselves that they would like to have a smartphone which is solely located at the supermarket. This smartphone would be there for purposes like promoting the supermarket via social media, providing the employees an option to contact the supermarket via WhatsApp instead of calling and communicating with the other district members. With this solution there would be less reason to contact employees in their free time with questions regarding work situations, since there is a smartphone permanent in the supermarket to contact with these questions. This solution would strengthen the boundary between work and non-work life as described originally by Nippert-Eng (1996). The boundary theory suggests that the strength of the boundary between work and non-work life depends on the balance between these two different ‘lives’. When there is imbalance between work and non-work life, the boundary is fading. With this new smartphone more balance between work and non-work life is created, which strengthens the fading boundaries. Realistically, it might take a while to implement this new idea, since all employees have to be informed about the procedure regarding this new ‘supermarket’ smartphone and above that, outside opening hours employees might still search for someone to contact, since there is nobody to answer the ‘supermarket’ smartphone.
IMPLICATIONS
work-related social media outside working hours, but the interviewees are experiencing no emotional exhaustion is contradictory to the research done by Van Zoonen, Verhoeven and Vliegenthart (2016) and Schultz et al. (2015), where they predicted that lack of sufficient social media policies would lead to emotional exhaustion. Finally, this study shed an interesting light on how employees tend to respond differently to the use of work-related social media outside working hours depending on their age, since the younger employees tend to just turn off their notifications and not take any drastic action, while the older employees tend to either ignore the messages sent to them or even leave the WhatsApp group, which is a more drastic action.
All in all, this study unveils how employees are forced to participate in work-related social media use, how they subsequently respond to this work-related social media use, how there is a lack of sufficient social media policies, and how the employees come up with their own solutions to manage the influence of work-related social media use outside working hours. All these findings contribute to the current field of literature about the use of work-related social media outside working hours, which is a field that has received only little attention up to the present day, while more research in this field could significantly help employers to improve the employee’s well-being.
Managerial implications of this study would be for firms, especially supermarkets, to provide employees with sufficient and clear social media policies to strengthen the boundary between work and non-work life. Besides providing sufficient and clear social media policies, providing employees with the appropriate resources to do what is asked from them, keeping up a Facebook page of the local supermarket for example, would be something that could take a lot of pressure away, since the employees would not need to use their own smartphone anymore and therefore would avoid participating in work-related social media use outside working hours.
LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH
A limitation of this study could be the research context in with it took place, namely Dutch supermarkets chains, this limits the generalizability of the study. However, it can still be generalized to other western supermarket chains and industries with intense social media use and work that physically cannot be taken home. Another limitation would be the urge of the interviewees to give socially desirable answers. Even though, all the possible measures have been taken to prevent this from happening, like signing a consent form that ensures the confidentiality and anonymity of the interview data. All these measures ensure that this last limitation would be of minor influence but has to be mentioned anyhow.
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APPENDIX I: INTERVIEW PROCEDURE – EN
CONTACT PER E-MAIL:Dear [name],
At first, I would like to thank you that you allowed me to provide you with more information regarding my master’s thesis!
For the upcoming half year, I am writing my master’s thesis with the (tentative) research question: “How and why do employees react towards the use of work-related social media outside working
hours?”. In sum, how and why do you react to the use of social media for work-related purposes in
your free time?
Because your supermarket is doing very well when it comes to using social media (e.g. all the nominations for ‘The best social awards 2019’) and because I personally have some connections within the supermarket, I decided to focus on this particular company for writing my master’s thesis.
I was wondering if I could interview you regarding this topic. The interview would take approx. 30 minutes of your time and you would help me very much with participating! Whenever it suits you, I can come over to your supermarket to conduct the interview. I was hoping to schedule the interview somewhere in the weeks 40, 41 or 42 (30 September till 20 October). Could you let me know, if you are willing to help me, when it suits you best?
Finally, a few days before the interview will take place, I will provide you the questions per e-mail, so that you can already think about what I am going to ask you during the interview.
INTERVIEW GUIDE: Introduction:
To start with, I would like you to read and sign the provided consent form. Do you any questions regarding the interview process? Is it alright if I use my smartphone to record the interview, so that I can analyze the data in a more detailed way?
-Start recorder- Purpose:
I am conducting this research for my master’s thesis for my master study Management Accounting and Control at The University of Groningen. Social media use within working hours has already been researched, but social media use outside working hours has not been research yet, which leaves a gap in the literature what I am trying to fill with this study. To clarify, when talking about social media, apps like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are meant. Do you have any questions about this?
Background questions:
1) What is your name and age?
2) For how long are you working at the supermarket? 3) What is your position within the supermarket?
4) For how long are you already working in this current position?
Social media use:
5) Does the firm use social media? a. Why (not)?
6) Do you use social media while you are outside work? b. Why (not)?
7) Is this use of social media personal or work-related?
8) To what extent are you asked by your employer to use social media for work-related purposes? 9) How do you think the use of work-related social media affect your private life?
10) Do you think your near friends and family are affected by this use? c. Why (not)?
Stress:
12) Do you experience any stress caused by the use of work-related social media outside working hours?
a. If yes: Does this stress caused by the use of work-related social media outside working hours affect your willingness to make extra contributions to your work?
b. Would this change if the use of work-related social media would be reduced?
13) To what extent is there a peer pressure to use work-related social media?
Coping mechanisms:
14) Does the supermarket provide any policies when it comes to the use of work-related social media?
a. If yes: Is this aimed at the use of work-related social media within working hours or outside working?
b. If no: Do you think this would be a good development?
15) Does the supermarket provide any service that helps you cope with potential stress caused by the use of work-related social media?
c. If yes: Do you make use of it?
d. If no: Do you think this would be a good development? 16) How do you think you avoid this stress?
Closing:
Hereby we have reached the end of the interview, do you have anything you would like to add that we have not discussed yet? I will transcribe the interview afterwards; would you like to receive the transcript? And would you be interested to receive my master’s thesis when it is finished?
APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW PROCEDURE – NL
CONTACT VIA E-MAIL:Hoi [naam],
Ten eerste bedankt dat ik je een mailtje mag sturen met meer informatie omtrent mijn scriptie! Komend half jaar ben ik dus bezig met het schrijven van mijn masterscriptie. De (voorlopige) onderzoeksvraag voor mijn scriptie luidt: “How and why do employees react towards the use of
work-related social media outside working hours?”, kortom hoe en waarom reageer je op het gebruik van
werk gerelateerde social media in je vrije tijd.
Omdat de supermarkt het erg goed doet op het vlak van social media gebruik (denk aan alle nominaties voor ‘The best social awards 2019’ in de categorie business) en omdat ik natuurlijk enkele connecties heb binnen de supermarkt, heb ik besloten me op dit bedrijf te richten voor het schrijven van mijn scriptie.
Mijn vraag is of ik jou zou mogen interviewen omtrent dit onderwerp. Het interview zal hooguit 30 minuten duren en je helpt me er heel erg mee! Ik kan zo naar je supermarkt fietsen wanneer het je maar uitkomt. Ik hoopte de interviews in week 40 en 41 (30 september tot en met 13 oktober) af te kunnen nemen. Zou je mij kunnen laten weten wanneer het jou schikt?
Tenslotte, geruime tijd voor het interview zal ik je de vragenlijst verstrekken, zodat je alvast een beeld hebt van de vragen die ik zal stellen.
INTERVIEW GIDS: Introductie:
Om te beginnen wil ik je graag vragen om het toestemmingsformulier voor dit interview te lezen en te ondertekenen. Heb je verder nog vragen wat betreft het interview? Is het goed dat ik mijn smartphone gebruik om het interview op te nemen, hierdoor kan ik het gedetailleerder uitwerken.
-Start recorder- Doel:
Dit onderzoek voer ik uit voor mijn masterscriptie voor mijn master Management Accounting and Control aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Social media gebruik binnen werktijd is in het verleden al onderzocht, echter is social media gebruik buiten werktijd nog niet onderzocht, wat ervoor zorgt dat er een kloof in de literatuur ontstaat. Deze kloof probeer ik te onderzoeken met behulp van deze scriptie. Heb je hier nog vragen over?
Achtergrond vragen:
1) Wat is je naam en leeftijd
2) Hoe lang werk je al bij de supermarkt? 3) Wat is je functie binnen de supermarkt? 4) Hoe lang heb je deze functie al?
Social media gebruik:
5) Gebruikt de supermarkt social media? a. Waarom (niet)?
6) Gebruik je ook social media in je vrije tijd? b. Waarom (niet)?
7) Is dit social media gebruik persoonlijk of voor het werk?
8) Tot op welke hoogte word je door je werkgever gevraagd social media te gebruiken voor je werk?
9) Hoe denk je dat het gebruik van social media je privéleven beïnvloedt?
10) Denk je dat dit gebruik van social media van invloed is op je vrienden en familie? c. Waarom (niet)?
Stress:
12) Ervaar je stress veroorzaakt door het gebruik van social media voor je werk in je vrije tijd?
a. Wanneer ja: Heeft deze stress mogelijk ook invloed op je bereidheid een extra stap harder te lopen?
b. Zal dit veranderen als het gebruik van social media voor je werk wordt verminderd?
13) Tot op welke hoogte is er groepsdruk tot het gebruiken van social media voor je werk?
Omgaan met stress:
14) Heeft de supermarkt ook regels omtrent het gebruik van social media voor je werk?
a. Wanneer ja: Is dit gericht op het gebruik van social media voor je werk tijdens je werk of in je vrije tijd?
b. Wanneer nee: Denk je dat dit een goede ontwikkeling zou zijn?
15) Biedt de supermarkt ook diensten aan die je helpen om te gaan met mogelijke stress veroorzaakt door het gebruik van social media voor je werk?
c. Wanneer ja: Maak je hier ook gebruik van?
d. Wanneer nee: Denk je dat dit een goede ontwikkeling zou zijn? 16) Hoe denk je dat jij deze stress probeert te ontwijken?
Afsluiting:
