Companies struggle to deal with workers’ Twitter addiction

August 25th, 2010By Category: Work Tips

Users of Twitter in Japan are said to be up to 10 million and rising. Unfortunately, its convenience and accessibility have spilled over into the workplace, causing headaches for some employers out there.

J-Cast news takes up one such example. It seems the sales department manager at a wholesaling firm requested the personnel manager to sit down and try to talk sense into a staff member in his 30s—referred to herein as A-san — whose addiction to Twitter is causing headaches.

A-san had joined the sales department after having previously worked in the IT sector. His familiarity with IT initially made him an asset to the company, where he was applying his knowhow to develop tools for marketing toward the small retail outlets that make up the company’s client base.

The twitter office in Japan

Unfortunately, A-san came down with a serious case of tweet-itis. While there was no smoking gun per se, the decline in his sales performance appeared inversely proportional to the time he was devoting to tweeting.

When a curious colleague took a peek at A-san’s monitor, A-san boasted to him, “Look – I’ve already got more than 3,000 people following me. Whenever I tweet, I get a reply right away. It’s really neat. Are you into it yet?”

The colleague noted A’s infatuation in a report to the head of the sales department, who promptly blew his stack. “His sales aren’t going anywhere! Make him stop that Twitter nonsense right now! Tell him if he’s caught doing it again, we’ll take away his PC!”

But even after refraining from tweets at the office, the man kept at it on his cell phone. Co-workers noted that since getting chewed out by the boss, A-san had also begun issuing negative chirps about his employers.

Incensed by these developments, the division head issued an ultimatum: “Either stop your tweets, or you’re outta here.” But the man’s cell phone is his private property, and if he uses it outside the workplace, there seems to be no legal means to put a halt to his Twitter addiction.

Don’t employers have any recourse in situations like this?

Tweeting on company time can actually be in violation of the so-called ‘duty of devotion to service.’ If someone continues tweeting after being warned, the possibility that he’ll make derogatory remarks about the company or management can be anticipated, which could be used to justify his dismissal on disciplinary or other grounds.

There appear to have been other cases of staff being dismissed over Twitter use as well, a particularly bad case for example involved leakage of confidential company data and damage to the company’s reputation as a result.

Companies in Japan have different rules regarding their employees’ use of blogs and other so-called “social media.” IBM Japan, or instance, is said to encourage employees to use their actual names and entrusts them to manage the contents on their own.

The J-cast article invited a clinical psychologist, Kenichi Ozaki, to give his view of the situation.

“A-san may have developed a ‘Twitter addiction,’ which is a lot like gambling dependency,” Ozaki theorizes. “The tension while awaiting for a ‘random reward’ (response) – which you don’t know when or from where it will come – is much more addictive than anticipation for a predictable reward.”

“From each reply and re-tweet, he obtains instant gratification, which stimulates his sense of self-esteem,” writes Ozaki. “Mr A would benefit from guidance along the same lines as being told that he’s not allowed to play pachinko on company time.”

When their addition becomes full-blown, some addicts tend to issue increasingly extreme posts in anticipation of obtaining more responses, creating a vicious circle. That’s why Ozaki points out that a worker who tweets himself into a frenzy can indeed become an annoyance to customers and suppliers, and is therefore capable of wreaking considerable damage to his employer.

Article translated from The Shukan Post.  Photo credit: Yoshimasa Niwa / Flikr

Author of this article

GaijinPot

GaijinPot is an online community for foreigners living in Japan, providing information on everything you need to know about enjoying life here, from finding a job and accommodation to having fun.

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Comments

  • steve says:

    Sigh what is wrong with the boss, tell me how to get a hold of the boss i will talk with him my email is rward8@gmail.com. First off A-san is in the wrong department yes you may of hired him as a I.T. person but.

    if the man has 3000 people following him and he is getting responds that fast then you should let him use that in order to promote your business doh. your the news right, im currently learning Japanese so not sure what some of the words are.

    so now you have 3000 people who get anything j-cast news it would not be to hard to turn a negative into a assets.

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