Blurred Work - Life Frontiers: A Paradigm Shift in Employee Social Networking Privacy

Abstract

A large number of millenials are expected to join the workforce by the year 2020. The ‘Selfie Generation ‘as they call it, differs from the previous generations in terms of their workplace attitudes, aspirations and technological adaptations. They exhibit great affinity to digital world. These characteristics of millenials are going to have a strong impact on the future workplaces. Growing popularity of digital gadgets and social media among the millennial workforce has become a cause of concern among corporate. Digital craze among employees may make them sometimes blind to the dangers of sharing sensitive information about their employers/ organizations which may result into troubles for the firms in question. Modern day employers have started monitoring their employees conduct (including monitoring the employee’s social media accounts, mobile communications, laptops etc) at and beyond official work frontiers , to their defense. But as there are always two sides to a story, this form of monitoring has put employee privacy at risk, thereby blurring their personal-professional (life) boundaries. This paper seeks to study the contemporary trends in employee monitoring and resulting issues concerning employee social networking privacy. The paper also seeks to address the ethical and legal dimensions connected with employee social networking privacy.