There is a social problem when 55% of Australian workers call out their employers for banning access to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites, according to yesterday’s report in the Courier Mail.
Unhappy employees are rebelling.
Almost one in three (28 per cent) hid their screen from their boss so they could network undetected; almost one-in-four 18-to-24-year-olds said they shirked extra work to make time for social networking; and 17 per cent skipped lunch to justify work time spent networking.
A big majority (66 per cent) believed Facebook was for work as well as play and accepted work colleagues’ “friends requests”.
I agree with Laurel Papworth (whose blog and tweets I respect) for saying many companies treat social networks more as parties and less as business resources. “The best and brightest businesses will benefit from harnessing the potential of an ambitious, hyper-connected workforce,” she said.
As proof, I point you to a list that Josh Peters compiled of 30 Facebook applications for business, from blog promotion, to networking and communication, to sharing audio and video files.
Companies need to change their mindset–and governments must follow suit.
Did you catch the story last week out of New Delhi that India’s Ministry of External Affairs, in the name of preventing online security attacks, is restricting its diplomats from accessing social networking sites, writing blogs, and using webmail?
A circular issued last week asked officials not to log on to social networking sites, specifically citing Facebook, Orkut and Ibibo as examples. The other prohibited practices include download of peer-to-peer music using sites like Kazaa and sharing of photos through Flickr and Picasa.
…But the matter is even more critical for the foreign office as officials posted in Indian missions abroad or on foreign tours tend to use web-based mail rather than the ministry’s own mail system.
Might I suggest that business and government managers contemplating either banning or blocking access to blogs, wikis, email, or social networking sites follow the lead of IBM and their employee-driven social computing guidelines?
Rather than drafting regulations around conference tables, ask the cubicled employees to be the masters of their online museums. Consider that once you have the support of the employees, there will be increased productivity and decreased frustration.
It’s a place to start, anyway.
Photo credit: xplosive
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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Reading: “Why Facebook Bans Must Stop — AriWriter” ( [link to post] )
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Why Facebook Bans Must Stop [link to post]
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Why Workplace Facebook Bans Must Stop: [link to post]
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RT @JesseNewhart: Why Workplace Facebook Bans Must Stop: [link to post]
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RT: JesseNewhart Why Workplace Facebook Bans Must Stop: [link to post] Some good points here but most folk will just skive on Fbook imo
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Facebook is a bit like email. Many people use if for business and pleasure. But ultimatley, more peeople use Facebook for no-work reasons. But this shouldn’t lead to censorship. If employers thinks and employee is shirking their job in favou of FB or any other distraction, they need to have a word with said employee. It’s very easy.
Stephen Pirrie´s last blog post..Tive: Didn’t want to like this. I dislike the fickle nature of pop laughing at a decade then emulating it soon after. Good tho http://bit.ly/he3zL
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RT @JesseNewhart Why Workplace Facebook Bans Must Stop: [link to post]
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Blocking Facebook and Myspace is more about protecting the network and data from viruses, malware and worms than censorship.
Daethian´s last blog post..Recyling your sex toys – someone finally listened to me!
I think businesses should stop looking at social networks as a playground, and start encouraging their employees to promote their companies through these networks, forums, etc. And employees should start showing their employers the benefits of publicizing themselves on these networks.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Blogging, Poetry, Photography´s last blog post..Twitter Photo Mosaic
@Kikolani Which comes first: the employer recognizing benefits or the employee showing benefits?
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RT @HaleyOdom: RT @JesseNewhart Why Workplace Facebook Bans Must Stop: [link to post]
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As times are changing I think more companies will have less strict policies with this. You usually find the more traditional financial or gov’t companies that don’t allow this, but they ban a lot of sites.
Ban or block? I’d rather see a site blocked than banned, knowing the IT department could unblock. Banning sounds more finite.
Great post, Ari. The IM tool I use at client site was down last week so my coworker and I got onto FB and used its chat function instead — and it worked great. I was thankful neither my company’s computer system nor my client’s had FB blocked as it was a very useful busines tool in that moment! I have a personal FB acct, but then a business one for coworkers and clients — and have my tweets automatically post there as my status update.
chrishemrick´s last blog post..Social Media Timesavers #2: Dump your e-newsletter TODAY
Well put Ari…since reading your tweet about this, I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and honestly, I’m still not sure what I think.
On the one hand, I’m opposed to censorship – you know that. When it comes to governments and ISPs, I believe in a totally open and free Internet. But we’re talking about the workplace; and while you and I have very good reasons to use Facebook and Twitter for work, the fact is, the majority of the American workplace probably does not. If you’re not in a position to promote your business or look for clients or employees, then using social media during work hours is probably not for the best reasons.
That said, I do think that companies need to trust employees; but oddly enough, your statistics only prove that they shouldn’t!
In other words, I support your general thesis, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Jillian C. York´s last blog post..Teaching my Mom to Twitter
You mention the American workplace. Imagine if your co-workers, colleagues, or vendors were outside the United States. Or, maybe someone was traveling and evangelizing your organizational brand. Is email the only way for communication? What if said person or satellite office wanted to share a video? Wouldn’t a closed Facebook or Ning group be suitable? But if the company bans/blocks access, there goes the productivity and the increased costs of making a DVD and shipping it around the world.
Just saying. Companies need to think beyond their walls.
Ari, most of my colleagues are in other countries! That’s not my point. I’m stating that the average American (and probably the average Swedish or average Moroccan, whatever) worker has no reason to use social media during work hours, for work purposes. And my guess is that the average workplace that bans Facebook (such as my mother’s workplace) realizes this.
Now, no doubt there are workplaces that could benefit from their employees using Facebook as well; those such organizations should be our focus. I recently worked for a non-profit which was unwilling to embrace social media (they didn’t block it though) despite my insistence that they could recruit new donors that way. I did my best to convince them (they still haven’t budged).
Jillian C. York´s last blog post..Teaching my Mom to Twitter
Ari, in response to your post, I put up my thoughts on companies to develop formal policies and procedures for social media, similar to the IBM social computing guidelines. Companies are banning sites like FB because they fear what they don’t understand. The greater risk is for employees to take it underground. Instead, companies should be proactive and formalize policies surrounding social media usage.
Daniel Hoang´s last blog post..Social Media Policies and Procedures
“Companies are banning sites like FB because they fear what they don’t understand.”
Amen to that!
We’re blocked from Facebook and YouTube (among various other sites) at Ontario government, but we can get manager approval for a proxy to bypass it if we legitimately need them for work purposes. Besides the fact that I’m the new media intern and do ongoing research into Web 2.0 stuff, I actually can’t think of any reason I’d be using FB/YouTube other than killing time… very very few of our ministries are actually using them strategically in their own programs.
The mentality toward social networks like Facebook definitely has to change, but, at least where I work, an internal communications strategy needs to have been adopted by employees before that can happen. One reason there’s mistrust of new technologies is because we’re not using them internally… there has to be an employee engagement strategy to get to know social networks and think of ways to use them in our work. But I guess if they’re blocked from the start, it’s kinda hard to do this!
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Why Facebook Bans Must Stop [link to post] great article by @ariherzog
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Hey, for groups that want to collaborate in an environment that does not allow chat programs, i would suggest looking at a single file chat room like http://batchchat.blogspot.com. We use it at work, and because it is only a single file shared by all users, no sysadmin has ever found it.
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