Secondly, Facebook is known to have a rigid employment system that seeks to ensure that the company takes on only those individuals who can contribute to its mission. Since 2008, the company has had a tradition of Employee Bootcamp which, as posited by The Star. com,“ may lack the physical tests of military basic training but does provide the same kind of shared experience and cultural indoctrination into the world’ s largest social network.” This ritualistic means of orientation for new employees indicates that the company’ s attitude towards preserving tradition is unwavering as each year hundreds of potential engineers develop and unleash live software updates that might be put out to nearly a billion users. About this method, Joel Sligsteign, head of the program said“ I would describe it as a way for us to educate our engineers not only on how we code and how we do our systems, but also how to culturally think about how to attack challenges and how to meet people. We like to teach what’ s important very early on, on Day 1. I would say it’ s even more of a cultural program than it is a teaching program.” Among the organisation’ s traditions and rituals, every few months, Facebook engineers pull an all-nighter called‘ Hackathon’, trying out software ideas that sometimes turn into real products. Employees have the option of flexibility in work hours and the ability to work from home although the company generally has a high turnover rate. There are meetings with employees every month and new recruits are exposed to an array of expressions that mimic the organisation’ s core values. These sayings are posted on redletter posters around any Facebook office and include:‘ What would you do if you weren’ t afraid?”,“ The foolish wait”,“ Are you fearless” and etc. In Facebook’ s work environment, employees are encouraged to be sharp, fast and intuitive. This type of behaviour is rewarded with attractive allowances meanwhile all employees have at their disposal food facilities, child care reimbursement, laundry services and protection against adversaries in risk-tasking ventures( Majumdeer et al, 2015).
On the contrary, in a code of conduct on the organisation’ s official website, Facebook indicates that, inter alia, conflicts of interests between employees and suppliers or etc, harassment, issues of financial integrity, protection of user data, protection of company assets and reporting violations are not tolerated and could result in termination of employment. These codes serve to guide the employee on alternative behaviour to avoid situations and how to operate within Facebook’ s fast-paced environment. But, businessinsider. com in 2016 compiled a list of complaints from some current and former employee and some of them indicate that the organisation’ s policies and expectations set for its employees are not always best practices. According to the site,“ Facebook ' s " make an impact " mantra makes the entire company ' s workforce focus only on personal wins, not on the success of the team as a whole.” This sometimes result in the overworking of employees who are, for six weeks out of the year, on 24 / 7 on-call duty. The site further quoted one Facebook engineer as saying,“ I have to carry and immediately respond to a charged phone where I can be reached 24 / 7, including leaving the ringer on the nightstand as I sleep."
Finally, Facebook’ s organisational culture is one of open communication among its staff. Lombardo( 2017) writes,“ Workplace communication is very important to companies because it allows companies to be productive and operate effectively. Employees can experience an increase in morale, productivity and commitment if they are able to communicate up and down the communication chain in an organization.” In October, 2016 Facebook launched and marketed to companies worldwide, Workplace by Facebook, to mimic their own strategies of internal communication and enabling users to work together and get more done. The app connects employees in the workplace and features options like group discussion, a personalised News Feed and voice and video calling like the company’ s flagship social network. Currently, all of the company’ s employees communicate using Workplace which, according to Lori Goler, Facebook ' s vice president of global human resources, is“ a great way” to deliver on the expectation that there will be open communication across an organisation. At Facebook, this culture of open communication allows for an arena of free thinkers who are engaged, competitive and fast, thus enabling the business to expand and diversify and to remain resilient against competition. The company is characterized by a flat hierarchy with few levels of middle management between staff and employees. According to thestar. com, Facebook is an egalitarian workplace with little job specialisation and“ lacks hierarchical titles like“ principal engineer” or“ senior engineer.”” The chain of command is such that“ at no time