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Abstract

Social media use has quickly become an integral part of people’s personal and professional lives. Although many scholars highlight the benefits of social media for engagement, communication, and outreach, leveraging social media platforms for human resource (HR) practices continues to present interesting questions and challenges. This article examines how municipal and county governments are using social media in recruiting, hiring, monitoring, and disciplining employees. Many local governments are not taking advantage of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media as potential tools for recruitment and screening because of concerns related to liability. The same organizations are conducting workplace monitoring and addressing disciplinary issues around employee social media use, often without guiding policies in place. Based on the findings from this research, recommendations are provided on how and when local government HR departments can more effectively use social media in their practices.

Keywords

social media human resources technology employee rights

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