I do not understand this concept at all. The Boston Business Journal published an article on their website today about a survey by Robert Half International discussing employers prohibiting social media. The article can be read here: http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/10/05/daily21.html
The article states that “54 percent of companies prohibit the use of social networking Web sites during work hours, including popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn” WHY??? There are a couple of points I want to make about this.
1. Why are these companies banning the sites? I wish they would have given some examples of companies that have banned it because that might help explain the rationale. However, most companies can use these sites and lead generation tools. That translates to $$$. Dear employers, notice the term for what you are banning “Networking” – this means meeting people and building contacts that might lead to business. Why wouldn’t you want your employees to get out there and network and make a better name for your company.
2. Educational reasons – there are so many free resources on these sites. Countless articles are posted on Twitter these days that could prove profitable and helpful to employees. Why wouldn’t you want to participate in a free webinar to learn how to improve yourself (back to point 1) to make more $$$.
3. Your customers are talking about you whether or not your online – so why not participate?? This is one of my favs. People are talking about your company, no doubt. If you can’t access the sites how are you going to monitor and respond to what is being said..helllllloooooo???
4. Employee Morale – instead of pissing off your employees and making them continuously unhappy why don’t you give them access and let them spend 15 minutes on facebook checking in on their friends. Is 15 minutes really going to kill you?? No, you would rather piss them off by telling them they can’t use it therefore making them unproductive disgruntled employees. Believe me, if you give them access they will still get their work done because you are giving them the access. It’s like telling a 20 yr old they can’t drink – they only want to do it because they can’t.
As someone who spends 8 hrs a day on facebook (for my job), I don’t understand this concept. Again, if I new what industry some of the companies are in that might help explain it a bit more..
