It’s my tea break. Let me check how many people have liked my new profile picture….
Busy writing this business case and twitter notification pops up on the phone. oh I need to check it out quickly. It will just be a minute maximum…..
I am stuck and need more information to solve this issue. OK let’s use google….
I don’t like the products of that company…let me write a bad review on their Facebook page….
While most organizations understand that social media use in the workplace is a reality, their approach to managing it varies. There are some organizations who either want to simply block altogether all social media applications for use at work and there are some who want to allow all or some social media applications like Facebook and Twitter . But most work places are keen on striking a balance of acceptable use.
Even organizations who have a general understanding about why social media should be allowed in a corporate setting, they are still in one of two camps: those who embrace social applications willingly for its ability to enable business agility and those who embrace it grudgingly, worrying in the back of their minds about how these applications may be impacting worker productivity. Let’s explore some of these hesitations and issue, and how they can be managed for a healthy work-life balance.
Business Use of Social Media
With a number of social networks offering a slightly different approach to sharing, interaction and communication, there’s a platform available for all strategies and business types.
With an expected 2.44 billion people to be using social media by 2018, can you afford to ignore it as a resource of marketing, recruitment and engagement?
Let’s look at some advantages of using social media at work:
- Social media’s great for company culture – people know how to use social media and are comfortable with it. Allowing employees to interact with each other through a social medium is a great way to enable a cohesive culture and encourage individuals to communicate with each other from disparate locations.
- Social media improves collaboration – although many assume that social media is only for non-work related interaction, the functionality included is often extremely useful for business collaboration. The ability to share data in any form, quickly and easily (and often for free), with a large number of people or specific teams, makes social media an invaluable tool for collaboration.
- Social media provides a channel for advocacy – allowing the use of social media by employees can provide a brand with an advertising channel that is not only free, but very influential.
- Social media’s a great way to network – any productive employee will need to network with other people. Sales is all about networking, whether this is with an existing lead or sourcing new ones. Business leaders can nurture opportunities for business partnerships and relationships.
- Marketing can build and manage the company’s brand online – free form of advertising and engaging people. Creates brand awareness and distinction. Enables people to like or familiarize with brands.
- Recruiting teams can search for and engage with talent. To grow a business, everyone needs to have the trust, ability and tools necessary to do so. If a company is completely insular, then it will be quickly surpassed by its competitors that are embracing new technologies and strategies using social media.
Use Of social Media During Work Hours
Research shows that a majority of employees who access Facebook during their workday act as “social voyeurs,” meaning the application is running in the background as they continue their normal tasks.Most employees keep Facebook or Twitter open in the background while they’re at work, like email.
The addition of new features such as the “Like” button, a more interactive Timeline and greater integration with other websites (and apps) is likely driving the increase in more interactive use of Facebook. Like the growth of social applications alongside IM, more widespread access to better tools leads to more time spent being interactive online. This is a trend that is likely to continue, and one that smart businesses can leverage to their advantage. This closely matches the way that most people use their email at work – . an always-on communication tool, albeit one with a much more business-critical focus.
Employers’ Concern
The biggest concern from an employers’ perspective is that employees who use social applications are less productive than employees that do not. It is deemed that staff spend a lot of time checking their social media pages instead of working their full shifts. Perception is that at times employees start interactions including chatting which takes up time and concentration away from daily work. However, research has shown that employees who are always connected (thanks to personal devices like smart phones) take shorter work breaks than ever before (down an average of 35 minutes per day).
These same devices and remote access to enterprise applications also means employees regularly work during “off hours,” increasing overall productivity. After all, how often do you check your smartphone for work-related email, tweets, etc. during ‘off hours’? In addition to productivity as it ties to time worked, there are also the productivity bonuses associated with the ability to safely use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to meet corporate business objectives in areas like marketing, customer service and sales.
Enterprise executives are not just enduring this evolution in communication, but many are embracing and proactively seeking ways to use these social applications to form connections with their customers and their employees. Finally, more and more forward-thinking organizations are leveraging the trend towards more digital interaction and are turning towards advanced collaboration tools to improve company’s efficiency, overall.
Cultural Differences
We all know that social media can be very effective for promoting and marketing brands, but what about it’s effect on your company’s productivity?
I’m sure there are many managers out there who have or are struggling with the question of allowing employees to use social media in the office.
I know that I’ve seen some that do allow their staff to use it and some that lock it all down. I have to wonder though, is productivity any more of a problem since social media came along?
Has social media really created the problem or is it simply drinking coffee in the kitchen where staff may gather to while away a little time?
Of course Twitter and Facebook etc can be distracting. However, is it whether you should be blaming the technology or your own hiring and management practices is the dilemma here. It’s just too easy to point the finger at something such as social and rationalize that blocking it will increase productivity.
Arguably it is wrong to adopt policies which affect those who are productive and put in the extra effort both in the office and outside normal hours. Some employers out there think that they own the employees between 8am to 5pm and show little or no real appreciation for the extra work taken home or stayed and worked late in the office or come early to work.
People Need A Break Now And Then
Perhaps employees are distracted because moral is low due to a bad environment. A recent Canadian study found that 35% of HR people said their organization would tolerate just about anything from a manager so long as they got results – leaving HR to clean up the mess, if possible. 73% of HR people reported they spend a significant amount of time dealing with problems caused by bad managers.
Some people like to stare out the window on sunny days and daydream – does this mean they should be bricked up? If employees are distracted by social media then it’s a staffing/culture issue and taking the easy way out by blaming the web or social media is simply glazing over a deeper problem. If company supervisors are pointing the finger at social media as the issue then perhaps taking a good hard look at how they manage their people is more important.
It’s really a human nature problem and that’s pretty much always the case. Technology is an avenue and not the driver. Those folks who seem to be distracted so much by social would probably be waylaid if a penny rolled by their feet. They’d find other things to waste time with, be it chatting by the water cooler or wandering the halls chatting up coworkers. Social media didn’t create a problem with productivity in the workplace, it just happens to be the latest and greatest way for those individuals to while away time at jobs they are not engaged by.
People do need a brain break every so often. Research shows that we work best if we take a little break every 25 minutes or so. In other words, heavy focus on the task for 25 minutes then take five or ten minutes to reset the brain for the next task. So, having that little distraction via Twitter or Facebook might actually enhance performance for some. At least one recent university study reported in the New Yorker backs that up and suggests companies offer staff “internet breaks” to increase productivity.
A smart workplace policy on social applications is one that supports employees’ natural inclination to use these apps intelligently while still ensuring the company is safeguarded from security risks. It also puts into context the reality of how these technologies are really used at work and points towards opportunities for businesses to leverage their employees’ desire to collaborate with each other online. Finally, it’s important to realize that effective social media use policies are often linked to enterprise-specific collaboration tools as well, which are often delivered online via Web applications.
As a parting thought, I’d recommend that when it comes to determining access to social applications in the workplace, keep the lines of communication open – and yet secure – within the company as well as externally with your partners and vendors. Understanding what Web applications employees are using in your company allows safely enable not only company-sanctioned applications, but also the ones used by your company’s most effective and efficient workers. By ultimately creating a balance that allows the effective use of technology while hedging against some failings in human behavior, you can make sure that your employees are always able to benefit from the best social and collaboration tools that the web has to offer. Of course employees work ethics plays a vital role as well.
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