This is the second of three parts that explain why it is impractical for companies and government agencies to block internet access. The first part explained how you can keep employees and increase ROI.
Is a company policy to ban internet access the right reaction?
Human resource consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas recently conducted a poll at the June 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Human Resource Management.
When asked about corporate policies and employee usage of social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and MySpace:
- 59.4% have no formal policy on social networking sites
- 47.4% do not care if employees use social networking sites, so long as work load is maintained
- 32.7% believe social networking decreases worker productivity
- 22.4% ban social networking access
- 10.3% tout the benefits of social networking as invaluable marketing, networking, and sales tools
- 7.9% encourage employees to use social networking
- 3.9% never heard of MySpace
To me, these statistics are social proof that the internet is a powerful medium that must be embraced. Presuming your company already has a website is indicative of this truth.
I challenge companies to work together to boost those lower statistics. How, you ask? By analogy, if you don’t know how to tie your shoelace, you ask someone for help or look it up in some book. If you don’t know the value of social networking, you should talk to the 57% who do.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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Federal employee here. What are frequently deemed social networking sites are blocked, as are You Tube, games, My Space, Facebook, etc. I even periodically have blogger blocked, but it came back after a while both times. I actually could use access for work-related reasons to a lot of social networking sites (delving into the facts) but just in case I might be enjoying myself, these are blocked. Truthfully, the network probably does interfere with work performance for highly administrative jobs, though. I’ve worked those and could see how it might prove a problem with a bored or low morale work force–both of which are likely with a federal job!
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