Employee relation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Employee relation - Essay Example A smaller survey done in the UK found 27 per cent HR professionals following the practice and a discrepancy in the popularity of the practice between media and finance industries, and retailers and charities (Peacock 2008). No legislation restrains HRM from considering the applicants’ information displayed on their Facebook profiles in order to reach recruitment decisions. Use of social networks for recruitment decisions poses certain issues. Firstly, there is concern over privacy of the candidates and establishment of limits on the employers’ interest in the job applicants’ private lives. Such vetting processes can be interpreted as invasion in the privacy of the job applicants (Peacock 2008) given job applicants do not scrutinize their posts and shared material on social media with an intention of having them reviewed by the prospective employers. Secondly, use of social media to reach recruitment decisions makes the employers vulnerable to the charges of discrimination (Lynas 2007) as the rejected employees might feel that they have been rejected because the employer did not approve of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or political views. This imparts a need for the employers to act responsibly and self-regulate in order to comply with the employment legislation. Retrieving information from job applicants’ Facebook profiles to reach recruitment decisions has negative connotations on employer-employee relationship. Employees are often unaware that employers are checking their social networking profiles as part of the screening process. Employers do so in order to find traces or evidence for what to them is inappropriate social behavior in the job applicants’ Facebook profiles. Laws guarding people against discrimination on the basis of race, age, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and other variables commence at the recruitment stage. An