Last week, a client told me that they don’t allow employees to access YouTube at work. “Do your employees carry cellphones?” I asked. The answer was “yes,” of course. Well then, most of them already have access to YouTube – right in their pockets.
The fact is, resistance to social network access at work is futile.
The Economist, in a special report on social networking, notes that a survey of 1,400 chief information officers conducted last year by the recruitment firm, Robert Half Technology, found that only one-tenth of them gave employees full access to such networks during the day, and that many were blocking Facebook and Twitter altogether.
Five reasons companies should allow social networking
1- Resistance is futile.
Workers increasingly have Internet access on their smart phones. By the year 2013, 43% of global mobile internet users (607.5 million people worldwide) will be accessing social networks from their mobile devices, according to a new report from eMarketer
2- Don’t assume people won’t find other ways to waste time.
Executives’ biggest concern? That social networking would lead to “Notworking” instead of doing their jobs. As the Economist report notes “This assumes that people would actually work rather than find some other way to pass the time they have to spare.”
3- Social networks actually can make workers more productive.
Three out of four of the 895 experts interviewed for the recent Pew Internet report The Future of the Internet IV, said that use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge,” according to Janna Anderson, study co-author.
4- You’ll miss great ideas.
Great ideas can come from any level of a company. Using social networks internally (wikis, blogs, forums, even IM) fosters collaboration, and allows workers at all levels to contribute ideas.
Experts emerge from within a Company culture when collaboration is encouraged, and along with them come some of the best ideas that would otherwise be lost. Because people can comment on information, companies often learn of internal expertise they didn’t know about already.
In most big companies, instead of collaborating, marketing competes with sales, advertising competes with PR and so on, creating silos that prevent fresh ideas from being heard.
I’ve consulted to companies where the marketing directs of divisions had never even met their counterparts in other divisions, let alone collaborated with them. As a result, they often were working on similar projects without sharing knowledge or resources. This wastes money, and squanders ideas that could be helpful company-wide.
5- Employees are much more trustworthy than companies think.
Managers worry that employees will leak confidential information, or speak poorly of the company.
Most people have much more common sense than to jeopardize their jobs, with wanton comments in social networks, especially these days.
If you can’t trust your employees, you have one of two problems: you are hiring the wrong people or you are not properly training the people you hire.
People who want to say something negative will find a way, with or without access to social networks during business hours. However, negative feedback also can provide an early warning that changes need to be made, either in policy or employees.
All in all, companies have more to gain than to lose by allowing employee access to social networks. My bet is that it’ll take another two years for most companies to figure that out.
Love your thoughts here. Companies already have policies regarding bad behavior, and they only need to help employees understand the impact of these comments, etc.
One other reason to allow employee access is that the employees are your strongest advocates, the people who are best able to separate btwn truth and b.s..
If you don’t let your employees speak, then are you happy leaving your message to your ex-employees?
This is a really great post! I think the bottom line here is what you discuss at the very end, why aren’t companies trusting their employees? And, if they don’t then there is a much bigger issue here. I personally feel that blocking sites like Facebook and YouTube is a bit of a slap in the fact to an employee. I mean, you hired me but you want to limit me with rules because you think I am going to waste time and money? It is a little insulting, isn’t it? And, do executives really believe that no one was wasting time before the invention of social media? Water cooler anyone? Blocking social mediums won’t stop time-wasters but only urge them to find other avenues, that aren’t as intellectual, to waste their time on.
The reason mentioned above regarding why companies should not block employee Access to Social network are really logical. If employees are working properly and giving you the report then there is no issue, they have right to do relax .
Regards
All great points. It’s only a matter of time before people realize and fully adopt this natural evolution of business online.
If interested, I also wrote about the importance of friendship at work and other “Reasons Leaders Should Not Fear Social Media”:
http://modernservantleader.com/featured/5-reasons-leaders-should-not-fear-social-media/
Great post! Our company also blocks social networking sites in during work hours. The reason is that employees keep on playing games like those on facebook.
Most employees are disciplined enough not to waste excessive time on the internet. However there are a few that believe it is their given right to shop, chat with friends, read news, watch videos, blog, share personal photos etc while they are being paid.
Studies show that there is a 20 to 30% waste of work time especially true with the younger generation. So if your job is to close sales for the company why is it so terrible that the company puts policy and regulation in place to ensure you are doing your job?
This is one of my biggest hot-button issues, to the extent that I set up a site dedicated to it. Please visit and contribute!
http://www.stopblocking.org
This is very interesting. I found a webcast exploring much of the same issues you raise. Take a look, makes for entertaining viewing http://prperspectives.tumblr.com/post/398433612/exploring-social-media-in-pr
I’ll give you one good reason why these should still be blocked – PORN.
that’s a stupidity problem, not a social media problem.
Awesome post! In terms of social media in the workplace, the pros outweigh the cons significantly. I wish all employers were able to see the powerful benefits and opportunities that social media creates.
There are many interesting points and I agree to the most of them. So, I think it´s inevitable to prohibit social networking for media related organisations, more over it is a must!
But on the other side I can understand the employers as well. If I imagine that my employees are busy for one hour in the average with social media sites – only exchanging private issues – and I am the one who has to pay it, I am not sure if I would accept it. Surely it depends on the organisation´s purposes and number of staff but only 10 employees would cost me 10 hours a day, which is the work time for only one person!
However, it would be the best if the CEO makes sure that everyone has to do a good job anyway. If the performance is not given, time spent in the internet may be limited.
If a core goal of a company is for people to work together better, to communicate better, and to grow the strengths of each other as a Team, then social media platforms can provide an extremely useful and interesting method of communicating to each other.
If a core goal of a company is to deter employee’s from working independently and not trusting employees – with full knowledge that the company has not “wasted” time on training employees and setting Fair Boundaries, then social media platforms should be blocked.
If the company never trusted employees in the first place, then please stop wasting time monitoring computer activities and just fire them.
Good post! Personally I know of so many companies that have blocked Facebook and other sites. Mobile users will still access it via their cell phones. Social sites actually make employees more productive After all social media is a very powerful tool.
David Plouffe’s,(President Barack Obama’s point man on social media) innovative strategy not only got Obama elected but also managed to raise the largest amount of campaign funding in election history.
At the IMD OWP 2010 , David Plouffe will share his insights on the historic Obama campaign while framing it in the context of how Obama’s leadership is shaping the United States and the world today. Weaving in his own experience managing and leading the campaign that propelled Obama into the White House, Plouffe will share: the stories behind the campaign and current strategic issues facing the administration; the importance of strategy in managing campaigns, public policy initiatives and crises; how Obama is still garnering support from the movement created during the campaign.
Not that I think that it should be tolerated, but if bosses trust their employees then I don’t think there is a reason to actually ban them from checking their personal accounts. On the other hand, trustworthy employees wouldn’t take advantage of it and prefer to do it over their work.
I’m a consultant working with Palo Alto Networks; they have an excellent whitepaper on the subject of blocking social networking apps that you may have to worry about, “To Block or Not. Is that the question?” here: http://bit.ly/d2NZRp. It has lots of insightful and useful information about identifying and controlling Enterprise 2.0 apps (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc.) Let me know what you think.
There is a very cutting edge webinar coming up that you can register for now. It delves into social media and the role it will play in the future of the business world: bit.ly/WebinarDelicateBalancingAct
I have blocked facebook and twitter in the company. reasons; it is temporal I am doing a migration and our company is to fully rely on the machines so i haven’t set up good firewalls yet. Objectively too the points above to an extent are one sided and can show who wrote. let systems get messed on u 1 day over some one who will say I did nothing… and then tells u i cant see this.. after there mistakes in seeing i have a surprise for u on FB not forgetting it is a time waster too but I will open it with a user policy and timed from 2PM in the afternoon. coz i cant expect u to come to office and first duty is FB
If a core goal of a company is to generate more leads one must keep this is mind that respecting your employees offer long term success.