In October 2009, Robert Half Technologies conducted phone surveys of more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States who employ at least 100 employees. They asked one question:
Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?
The results:
Prohibited completely: 54%
Permitted for business purposes only: 19%
Permitted for limited personal use: 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use: 10%
Don’t know/no answer: 1%
Not Understood?
It’s no surprise to me that so many companies are still hesitant to venture into the world of social media. After all, these technologies aren’t fully understood by many of today’s executives. But these new communication mediums cannot be ignored! A fundamental shift has occurred in the way we communicate, share ideas and engage one another. In order to be competitive, companies must become educated and willing to explore the benefits of social media.
Lost Productivity?
Many employers are worried that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites divert employee attention away from the task at hand, and that employees spend time on personal communication. Of course they do to an extent. However, these sites can also become extremely effective customer engagement, retention, and sales tools. My opinion is that these sites don’t cause any more employee distraction than cell phones, email, instant messaging, surfing the web, water cooler chats, and the TV in the break room – all of which are allowed in most workplaces.
Losing Control?
Perhaps the issue is that executives are worried about employees sharing confidential information in the social space. If that is the case, blocking these sites at work doesn’t accomplish anything. Reality is, most employees are using these technologies anyway. Whether it is at home on their own time or at work on a cell phone, an ever increasing percentage of people are logging onto social networking sites and sharing all sorts of content (what they like, what they don’t like, what they are pissed off about, what they are happy about, who said what to who, who did what to who, what they are working on, what they are going to do, and on and on). If an employee’s interaction on social networking sites cannot be controlled when they are away from work, why bother trying to control them while they are at work? The best approach is to embrace social media, become educated, and help your employees understand what is and isn’t appropriate use.
Corporations have to understand that the use of social media isn’t something that might happen. It IS happening! Executives can no longer afford to ignore this fundamental shift in the way we communicate. To do so only hurts the company’s opportunity to engage customers and compete in the global economy.
Which side of the fence are you on? Should social media be banned in the workplace, or should companies embrace and promote the use of social media?
