Why businesses must allow Facebook at work
I recently read that according to a survey by IT security group Global Secure Systems, social networking sites are costing UK businesses £6.5bn a year. It’s time to shoot down these myths about the supposed cost of people using social networks at work. Tom Nixon, Director at Nixon McInnes explains why he believes that it’s rubbish…
Smart organisations are realising that dialogue with customers is no longer the preserve of front-line staff. It’s often a bright spark in a back office who has the answer that a customer needs, or can cut through the red tape to get a problem sorted out, or get some useful feedback into product development. If you remove barriers to open communication with customers then everyone benefits.
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The ecosystem where these interactions happen is social media: blogs, forums, and social networks. Locking people out of Facebook will prevent them from learning how these tools can be used for the benefit of the business, and leave the organisation in the dark ages.
Through social networks and blogging, there are massive opportunities for employees to connect with people in other organisations and countries to share ideas and knowledge. This free source of learning can be a hugely valuable training resource. Instead of banning these tools, employees should be taught how to seek out online communities that are relevant to their work, and shown how to be active participants. Junior staff can accelerate their learning, and more experienced employees can build the profile of their company by being recognised experts in their field. Not only this, but online communities can be great places to find talented new recruits.
Regardless of the corporate firewall, conversations are already happening online concerning every conceivable product and industry. Companies have a choice between being an active participant or the dumb elephant in the room.
Ignorant managers will whine that workers are using Facebook to play Zombies and Scrabble all day when they should be working. Well I’ll let you into a little secret: For as long as there has been work, there has been procrastination. Social networks weren’t the first distraction from work on the web. Before the web there was Minesweeper and before that workers were reading Cosmopolitan and filing their nails. Banning Facebook won’t make people more productive. Having good performance management that rewards results will weed out the naturally lazy, and engage the stars. Corporations need to stop playing at Internet Police and get back to being good managers.
Workers in the UK spend much longer at their desks than their counterparts overseas. Perhaps they’re owed the time they spend on Facebook. I would wager that the companies who complain about their staff using Facebook at work take no issue with their people being slaves to their Blackberries, answering emails in the evenings and at weekends. If you’re going to ban Facebook during office hours, then it would be only fair to ban all work from happening outside the office too. I wonder if the value of unpaid overtime worked by UK employees is more than £6.5bn. Suddenly it doesn’t look like such a bad deal!
