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Dilemmas in allowing staff access to social media
Should staff be allowed to use Facebook and other social media in the workplace?
Steve Burrows is principal consultant at SBA Ltd, an Isle of Man based management consultancy. Until recently he was group IT director of a major UK business and has extensive experience of most IT related issues in the workplace. Here he gives some expert advice on whether to allow use of social media in the workplace.
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Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace etc.) has become one of the most popular uses of the internet.
It connects people and allows them to interact when they're apart; families, friends, ex-colleagues.
Because it offers staff a distraction from work it is often seen by managers and business owners as a threat to productivity – so is it?
And if it is, what can you do about it?
In practice, in most work places, social media is not an issue. Most staff are sufficiently responsible and conscientious to forego temptation and limit their use of social media while in the office, dipping into it during lunch and tea-breaks etc.
A few are not, and these exceptions have led managers to ask me to ban access to social media websites. In each case my guidance has been that they should 'fix the employee'.
In my experience staff don't abuse social media at work unless they are bored and unmotivated, it's usually not a problem unless they are badly managed.
It is far better to identify the issues leading to a problem employee and fix the individual than it is to incur the displeasure and ill-will of the majority of staff by banning access to relatively harmless websites which they may enjoy while munching on their sandwiches during lunch-break – that is their time and should be respected as such.
But you've tried that, you've discussed it with the wayward employee and it hasn't helped, so what can you do?
Firstly, produce a written company policy about personal use of the company's internet access facilities, and ensure that it is distributed to all staff.
It doesn't have to be long or complex, just explain what is and isn't considered appropriate internet usage at work.
This should include 'behaviour likely to bring the company into disrepute', so that you have explicitly prohibited the use of social media to make disparaging remarks about the company.
Ideally staff should sign a copy for the file so that you have a record that they've read it.
Secondly, ensure that you have web access logs on your web gateway, recording which PC went to which website and when.
You should also have this information anyway for other reasons, in case of real internet access abuse such as visiting porn sites.
With it you can present a wayward employee with the evidence: 'You seem to have visited Facebook 20 times yesterday and spent 40 minutes on it.'
The presence of a log is normally enough to ensure that staff are self-policing, and you should state in your company's internet access policy that all web access is logged.
Do not monitor the log as a matter of course, that would be an invasion of your employees' privacy, but use it to produce evidence when you have grounds for suspecting abuse.
Thirdly, which applies to all web access from work, ensure that your internet connection uses a web filter to prevent the download of malware and viruses, which are sometimes spread through links on social media sites.
If all else fails you may have to use the web filter to ban some sites, or to ban specific computers from visiting some sites, or limit access to specific times of day – lunchtime and outside of core hours.
This, however, should be an action of last resort, because once you go down this path you will be engaged in an endless war of blocking new sites as they emerge or your staff move on from banned sites to ones you haven't banned yet!
Social media has a constructive and positive role in the workplace, it helps to unite staff, aids them in coordinating their social activities with their fellow employees, and contributes to cooperation in the workplace, breaking down interdepartmental barriers.
In doing so it also increases staff loyalty and commitment.
Don't ban it unless you have to, instead be aware of it and manage it sensibly to get the most benefit from it.
Some major companies have even implemented 'private' social networking in their IT systems to improve collaboration and cooperation between staff, resulting in improved business effectiveness and productivity.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Send your comments to bizviews@newsiom.co.im
YOUR COMMENTS
Hi Steve, Good plain common sense with the focus on management and leadership, where it should be. Yours
RICHARD
I think the final statement made by Steve is most important (i.e.
private social networks for businesses). I recently conducted a survey
of staff at Lancaster University and Hull Business Schools examining, in
part, the role of social networking sites in their collaborations with
the business community. It is crucial for business schools to have
sizeable amounts of contact with this community to maintain research
status and for providing consultancy services. Surprisingly, very few
academics use this technology for networking, not even LinkedIn is
widely used. This suggests to me that businesses (mostly smaller
companies) are not using this kit either as our academic staff would
have needed to follow suit to keep up with competing institutions. By
implication, most people using Facebook during work hours are quite
unlikely to be advancing the company's operations in any way. Social
network sites are too chaotic for most business purposes (e.g. financial
stuff, marker research planning) and risks are imposed that are
unquantifiable. I would not advise companies to use social networks to
collaborate with others to devise, say, new company strategies; anyone
is capable of getting this data that you are associated with and
security is key. Instead, take advantage of intranets that essentially
'hide' from the world wide web. Always keep your crown jewels 'in
house'. It'd be horrible to find your own strategy during a Google
search...
Dr ALASTAIR W ROBERTSON
Good plain common sense? I think not. For there to be a common sense to
the allowance of twittering, there would have to be a value to twittering and in general all the psycological research into social
networking is to the detriment of the media and its intrinsic value to
individuals and thereby to the value to the companies to which they
belong and if we were to take this as sacrosanct, then the value of
allowing employees access to the social media has to be dubious in its
benefit, through allowing a perk to employees at a cost to the customers
of that business. It must surely be difficult for these companies to
claim a value to the well being of their staff, when the majority of
these staff do not have direct contact with the customers who are paying
for this provision and cannot therefore, convey this happiness to the
customer in what can be loosely termed as 'service' to that customer.
It therefore follows that, allowing staff access to their facebook
account, even in their lunchtime, does nothing for their performance for
the company even though it is at a cost to the company and the customers
of that company. Are we therefore paying for the modern idiom of, keeping the staff happy and therefore the customer happy, while not providing a benefit for the customer and therefore, only keeping Manx Telecom happy?
JWK.
A fascinating and insightful response from JWK - but I'm not convinced that I'd want to work in your business! Most research into employee productivity shows definitively that employees who are happy in their workplace, and connected to their fellow employees, perform better, and are more productive. This enhanced productivity drives improved value creation, a more effective value chain in delivering what the customer is paying for, and a clear benefit to customers. Recognising the same, most substantial businesses have staff social clubs and newsletters for the same purpose, to improve the horizontal integration of the staff in the enterprise and break down inter-departmental barriers. This improved inter-operation is an integral component of Kaisen philosophy and the subsequent continuous improvement methodologies which have developed out of it. Well managed use of social media in the workplace achieves the same objective of improving cooperation and collaboration, which is why major businesses in the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 are adopting a light touch approach to regulating social media use, and implementing their own social media provision to improve employee integration. In some global enterprises use of social media has been implemented as a strategic weapon in the war for talent, it has been recognised as an important component in creating environments where collaboration is fostered and the best people want to work. JWK, the oppressive and restrictive servitude-based employment regimes of the mills are behind us; not through legislation or social change, but simply because they didn't function as well as more modern approaches to value creation.
STEVE BURROWS, FBCS CITP
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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