Social media is becoming an integral part of our personal and professional lives as a way to communicate and discover information and content.
The average Canadian spends nearly eight hours a month on Facebook and watches 10 hours of online videos.
Despite social media’s emergence as a mainstream tool, many businesses are still struggling to figure out whether their employees should be allowed to use the services during working hours. I recently spoke to someone from a major bank who said certain social media services were “closed” while others were open.
The biggest concern among companies is that social media can be a distraction and a productivity killer. Does it make sense for employees to update their Facebook status when they could be dealing with customers or creating new reports?
On the other hand, the use of social media can’t be any worse than people who take coffee breaks or shoot the breeze around the water cooler. By letting people use these services, a company is suggesting it’s acceptable as long as it is done in moderation. They trust their employees to do the right thing.
For companies still unsure about letting employees use social-media services, a new study by security firm Clearswift offers interesting food for thought.
After surveying 1,620 managers and employees in the U.S., Britain, Germany and Australia earlier this year, Clearswift discovered that 79 per cent of respondents said being trusted to manage their own time, including being able to use the Internet as they wanted, was more important than their job or their compensation.
The Web 2.0 in the Workplace report also found that 62 per cent of employees said they should be able to use the Web and social-media services during work, and that 21 per cent would turn down a job that did not allow them to access social networking sites or personal email during work time.
Some of the report’s other highlights include:
Employee experience: 28 per cent say there is an expectation to maintain a social-media presence for work purposes.
Productivity: Despite concerns regarding employees wasting time, the majority of managers (60 per cent) trust employees to use these resources responsibly. However, 25 per cent of employees have sent content via e-mail and social networks that they regretted.
Barriers to adoption: These have shifted from productivity to a focus on security, with 61 per cent of global businesses citing it as their main concern. Fifty-one per cent of managers feel employees are “oblivious” to security concerns when using web and e-mail technology.
Clearswift CEO Richard Turner says the study shows “evidence of a change in attitude and confidence when it comes to Web 2.0 in the workplace – from the ‘stop and block’ mentality that many businesses adopted in previous years to an appreciation that Web 2.0 is good for business and should be implemented more fully.”
Special to the Globe and Mail
Mark Evans is a principal with ME Consulting, a content and social media strategic and tactical consultancy that creates and delivers ‘stories’ for companies looking to capture the attention of customers, bloggers, the media, business partners, employees and investors. Mark has worked with three start-ups – Blanketware, b5Media and PlanetEye – so he understands how they operate and what they need to do to be successful. He was a technology reporter for more than a decade with The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg News and the Financial Post. Mark is also one of the co-organizers of the mesh, meshUniversity and meshmarketing conferences.
