Company attitudes toward social media sites vary. Some swing the doors wide open, allowing employees to tend to their Facebook farms and update Twitter statuses throughout the day. Others lock 'em down, keeping non-business site access to a minimum.
A recent study found that, in the United States, 77% of employees with Facebook accounts check in with the community from the office. And, the amount of time they're spending in this part of the online world is growing. In the United Kingdom, another study found that 57% log in regularly from work, costing their employers 40 minutes a day.
Philip Wicks, a consultant at Morse PLC, a technology research firm in London, "It isn't just something you can do for half an hour during a lunch break but all through the day and because of that, it has a huge impact because people aren't necessarily concentrating on what they should be doing during the day." He estimates that this translates to lost productivity of $2.25 billion a year.
It seems like the obvious move would be to block the sites, but William Beers of PricewaterhouseCoopers disagrees. "Instead of trying to shut it down, I think we should try to embrace these technologies, put in a nice policy that governs it and explain to users the risks related to it, provide some training and then see what business benefits we can have from it," he said.
Ultimately, employers face a losing battle, so instead of investing heavily in prevention, seeking coexistence would probably be more prudent – especially as the lines between work and non-work become blurred.
Some social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, tend to skew more professional than personal, but a variety of positions are bringing employees into contact with social media. For marketing and public relations departments, this is already a fact of life, but once this corner of the company is engaged, the rest necessarily follows. An employee should stay in touch with what his employer is putting out into the marketplace ... and to do so, that may require a Twitter account or becoming a fan of the company Facebook fan page. Done properly, the permission of social media in the workplace can generate a return.
The companies present on sites like Twitter and Facebook are many and varied. Major consumer brands and retailers, such as Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) at @Starbucks, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) at @BestBuyCMO and several airlines, aren't surprising, but you can also find some major business-to-business players, including Deloitte at @Deloitte and @FidelityVenture.
So, blocking may save some employee productivity, but it comes at the expense of a cohesive message, access to new markets and additional revenue streams.
Rather than "yes" or "no," companies should be thinking, "how much"? A smart policy, with room for a bit of employee screw-off time, can pave the way for growth.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-05-2009 @ 12:45AM
jlaine said...
Great article Tom.
It makes people think about integrating social media into the work place in a responsible manner.
Measures and regulations are put in place concerning the personal use of company telephones, and both private and company cellphones, why would the usage of social media be any different?
At the beginning of the 20th century, many people pooh, poohed the automobile, saying it would never take on, whilst sitting haughtily in their horse driven carriages...
Social media is here to stay, so rather use it to our best advantage instead pointing the finger and demonizing :-)
@joanlaine
Follow me on - http://twitter.com/JoanLaine
11-05-2009 @ 8:23AM
Carla Pendergraft said...
I agree with this. Managers can gently nudge those who are spending too much time on Facebook for personal reasons. Sometimes I wonder why there is so much worry about Facebook, when many employees use their cell phones to make multiple personal calls during the day. That, to me, is a bigger time waster than the social networks, yet we have come to accept it.
11-05-2009 @ 10:08AM
Kathie Bechmann said...
The new wave of social media is really just a new wave of technology. It wasn't that long ago when companies would selectively give email access to only those that 'needed' email, the same was true for the internet.
Companies have the same challenge with social media as they have with all the other budding technology trends (including the telephone).
It's very likely that as with most technologies, we'll get lost in it's newness, waist countless hours and then eventually come to use it in appropriate amounts. And when used right, the social media tools can be used to increase the company's business and it's social capital.
We'll all get there, we just to learn to use the tools appropriately. But they're definitely here to stay!
11-12-2009 @ 6:01PM
Simon Baer said...
Good article but a blah subject. I agree that managers should keep an eye on their employees SM time and it's ultimately no one's responsibility but theirs and the employee's. Any employee worth keeping knows that their value is based on their productivity.