The dark side of HR blog in the workplace: investigating the employees’ trust factors affecting using HR blog

Purpose HR Blog is one of the social technologies systems to allow employees to voice the issues they experience. However, employees’ trust becomes an emerging issue to use HR Blog. This paper aims to investigate the impact level of employees’ trust in using HR Blog and identifying the causes affecting employees’ trust in using HR Blog. Social exchange theory (SET) was adopted as a vehicle to assist in identifying the employees’ trust causes. SET found serves the aim of research because it posits that the relationship between employees and HR Blog is built based on reciprocity, two-way of exchange. Design/methodology/approach The research adopts a qualitative method, namely, semi-structured interviews. The total number of conducted semi-structured interviews is 46, 38 interviews with HR Blog users and eight interviews with the management of HR Blog. Findings The present research found that HR Blog is distrusted by the vast majority of employees. The causes of HR Blog distrust were: functionality (mainly the placing the filtration process); lack of feedback and attention to employees in HR Blog; lack of providing tangible outcomes of HR Blog; and absence of HR Blog informative materials and clear guidelines. Originality/value This research lies in the fact that it is one of the first studies that focus on employees’ perspectives to empirically identify and investigate their trust factors affecting the use of HR Blog. The study achieved its aim in terms of gaining a better understanding of how to gain and restore employees’ trust to make HR Blog a trusted and effective system in the workplace.