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July 28, 2008
Social Networking and Employees: Where Do You Draw the Line?
With the rise of social networking, employers are left wondering if or how the trend affects their bottom line. Many have decided that Facebook and MySpace in the workplace are not appropriate (for content or productivity reasons) and have banned the sites from being accessed at their offices.
To which I say: Good luck with that!
With the onslaught of iPhones, resisting social media (and I don't mean for marketing purposes) will prove to be futile anyway. Go ahead. Fire someone for accessing their Facebook iPhone app. But don't be looking for any "Best Places to Work" awards anytime soon.
And when morale is down, productivity goes down. Call it anecdotal, but the places I've worked at with low morale lose productivity to gossip and office politics. What they're really looking for is support in a difficult workplace. So ban social media all you want, your employees will still find ways to "waste time." Or as I like to call it, not go completely mental.
On the flip side, social networking more often than not helps your business. Think of all the contacts that your employees have. All those college and high school pals now have careers in a variety of industries. Perhaps there are great partnerships to be had in these vast social networks.
Or when its time to hire a new employee, these networks are a great place to start.
Social media is also a great way to stay on top of your industry - to learn about things that are happening, what's new. You can't do it all yourself - or even with just your marketing team. What if a guy/gal in IT catches wind of a new program being implemented at a competitor? Chances are, they'll find it out via a social network, blog, Twitter, etc.
I say kill those largely unfounded fears and allow social networking in the workplace. Like the rest of business and life, it won't be perfect. But it can be reasonable.
By the way, one of the new hot things in social media is internal social networking, sometimes referred to as enterprise social media. This can foster genuine channels of good communication among departments across your company.
What's your opinion? Yay or nay to social media for employees? Leave a comment and tell us how it is!
Related Reading:
Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us?
Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn
Posted by Nathania Johnson at July 28, 2008 12:00 PM
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Comments
In this age where we place an emphasis on work/life balance, employers will need to recognize that trying to block websites (including social networking) is simply taking part in a trivial cat and mouse game. By blocking sites such as these, the company merely creates a cultural competitive advantage for their competitors in poaching talented employees. Besides, if your company is seeing drops in productivity, there are likely more fundamental reasons causing the drop-off than Facebook and MySpace.
You are absolutely correct in that social networking can be leveraged by companies to find new employees, prospect for new partnerships, etc. In the same way that even entry-level employees have taken part to recommend significant changes in the organization internally, social networking may be a way for them to contribute to business-building externally as well. The challenge for the organization will be in coming up with the most appropriate way to gain access to these networks.
Posted by: Eric Pender at July 28, 2008 2:55 PM
I think the only problem would be if an employee spends "too" much time on it. What is too much time? I will use the same answer when people read Google webmasters rules and ask, "what is excessive crosslinking," who the hell knows (there isnt a definite answer).
I can tell you for a fact that you are correct about morale. When morale is down, productivity will be down AND the quality of work will be down as well. As long as your employee is responsible, does what is expected and done a great job, let it be.
Posted by: Al Scillitani at July 28, 2008 3:46 PM
Great post! The people who are going to waste a lot of time at work are going to waste that time no matter what. The benefits of social or professional networking far outweigh the negatives of lost productivity.
Internal or enterprise networking is something that will grow quite a bit over the next couple of years.
And... like you said, even if you block Facebook and Myspace, there will always be 25 other services like twitter or friend feed that will replace them.
Posted by: Brian at July 28, 2008 3:48 PM
