The ubiquity of social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space and Orkut cannot be disputed. While their nature to link people together and their entertainment value is promising, the question is, is this activity of any use to a business when this activity is carried out during business hours? Through your comments and my research, my blog shall seek to answer if the use of social networking sites such as Facebook provide a benefit to my company or are they a distraction and should be blocked. In order to answer the question a little background on the company. The company XYZ corporation ( contractual obligations limit me from using the name of the company) is a midsize corporation employing around 30 administrative staff and another 200 plant workers. They also have remote offices in the provinces and the United States. The firm is a manufacturer of refrigeration products, hence has engineers along with the usual compliment of office staff like accountants, salespeople and general administration.
Now that a little basic information has been provided it would also interest you to know that we are currently looking at the potential of social networking tools in the company. To that end the company has its own intranet site and an e-newspaper. In our examination of online activity we found that there were several hundred hits to Facebook and Myspace. The natural position of management was that individuals within the company were wasting precious company time and resources during working hours. But is it really a waste of time? Research from IDC Canada in the online article “Social networking gets down to business" suggest that having an audience provides an invaluable opportunity for sales to discern between the various groups and study the various areas of opportunity for new products. Now that is a great opportunity for the sales people in the company! But how about the other 70 percent of users? Well, while popular sites like My Space might not be the most conducive tool towards increased productivity, according to Natasha Lomas on the WebWatch , sites such Insight from Reuters provide individuals with information on business practices and rules in different countries. This certainly has merit in the workplace, in addition to finding information they can also seek information by joining the various clubs. In addition this service from Reuters provides personalized alerts and a host of other features which make it enticing for any business user.
A useful tool for integration into the workplace is a tool developed by Five Across. This might be harder to deploy in a mid size company but recently Cisco acquired the company which develops tools to easily add social networking features to their websites. Tools such as these foster the collective sharing of knowledge within the company and within the context of their business circle. According to Stephen Lawson in Info World “Cisco also expects social networking, like other consumer tools such as instant messaging, to be embraced by general enterprises. Consumers are now demanding social networking capabilities and want to see them on companies' Web sites”. As mentioned earlier, in addition to administrative staff we also have engineers who we have discovered employ social networking tools to keep in touch with advancements in the field. This is done by maintaining contact with researchers in the refrigeration field as well as intra company communities. For such purposes a Five Across solution might fit the bill. But do we really want to disturb an established community by moving it into an e-walled enclosure?
The information industry can continue to develop tools but will employees really use tools that are sanctioned by their employer? Forcing employees to use tools is not a great way to encourage its use and development. In an age where we have gotten rid of middle management, to have a more knowledgeable and self managed employee, do we really need to take a step back and start dictating policy? Ideally an employee’s productivity should be measured by the accomplishments of an employee, not by the time spent by the employee on a website, after all individuals at 3M who have discretionary time have come up with novel ideas like post it notes. This is an ideal situation and not all companies can afford the forward thinking of companies like 3M. It is probably pragmatic to envision my work place as having a more balanced approach with monitoring web activity of individuals on social networking websites and rating their productivity accordingly. I for one really do not condone big brother activities like monitoring an employee’s web activity, but to limit everyone’s freedom by blocking websites is not what I advocate.
Your comments and input will be appreciated.
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