Should corporations ban employee use of social media?

[Pat Coyle]

News.com - "Banning access to social media from the corporate network is futile," said Carol Rozwell, a Gartner vice president. "The world we live in is digitally enabled and socially connected."

To underscore her view, Rozwell argued that humans are social creatures and that there's more to employee relations than a paycheck for work performed.

"While a job may be regarded as an economic transaction, the human brain thinks of the workplace as a social system," she said. Social networking can make employees "feel valued, a part of a community, and earn the respect of peers."

"We can't stop social networking, but harnessing the passion of employees and educating them about the responsibilities is essential," Rozwell said.

Computing security, too, is changing, argued Paul Proctor, another Gartner vice president. IT security staff should think carefully before exercising a reflex to prevent employees from communicating with Facebook's e-mail or Skype's Internet telephony

Should corporations ban employee use of social media? Share your thoughts here

[PK Koduri]

No they shouldn't and believe it or not most of them can/should use their existing internet/email policies with slight modifications to manage employee usage of Social Networks.

[Sarah Norman]

Visiting social media sites can be a great tool for networking, but it's much like the use of cell phones at work; it's all about moderation. Visiting Facebook is fine if you are trying to reach out and connect with like-minded organizations or draw in an audience, but an employee shouldn't spend hours playing games and taking silly quizzes. It's very easy to become distracted from your work if you don't have your priorities straight.

I don't believe banning employees from using social media sites is the solution. Anyone seriously taking advantage of access to these sites to the point where it affects their work performance will start to show, and those individuals will need to be reprimanded. Perhaps the solution lies in keeping records of social media activity.

[Michael R.]

Humans are bad about self-control. In my experiences in the workplace, I've witnessed a lot of people wasting time on the internet doing absolutely nothing productive. Stellar. I think it's absolutely necessary for companies (especially large ones like Eli Lilly) to implement security measures so employees don't have unlimited internet access to do as they please. I don't know if "banning" is in order, but, we are a nation of over-indulgence, so...

[Scott Perez, AIA, CSI, LEED AP]

I think (as a former business owner), it is imperative that a company does monitor this. And if it needs to be blocked then so be it. I have seen hours wasted online with people using IM, Facebook and others. They are not using it for work. We even caught a guy watching a movie from Netflicks. His claim was he was just listening to the words....but if that were the case, when I came around the corner, why did he try so hard to hide his laptop? This was his third offense by the way... You would think after you have not only had a verbal warning, but then a second one that was written you would listen? And no, we did not set out to be jerks, but he was using up serious bandwidth in the office while he was streaming the video! By the time you add in everyone who is streaming music, radio, whatever, your bandwidth is maxed and then the ENTIRE office works slower....not good. You add that on top of them wanting to do Facebook, Myspace, etc., that gets out of hand! Not to mention I get tired of paying people money to do social things... If people were working more than 8 hours a day, then maybe it would not be an issue, but everyone takes 1-1/2 hour lunches and gets in at 9 and leaves at 4:30...there are some people in for some rude awakenings...

[Paul Worthey Jr]

I do not think it should be banned. It can serve as an excellent communication tool to bring employees together, because as Rozwell mentioned, "the human brain thinks of the workplace as a social system." Think about it, how many of you grew to like your job, in part, because of the friends you made there and the relaxed atmosphere of the company? If the workplace was not also a social "spot" then why do companies sponsor dinners, trips, etc. ? Companies want their employees to be productive but also have fun with their co-workers, too. Plus, so many companies use social media as a marketing tool, so it wouldn't make sense to ban it.

[James Switzer]

I think that is should be banned if abused on a case by case basis. If a organization allows it, there needs to be discussion on how it should be used. Having employees allowed to use social networking in the office is a great way for organizations to break into social media networking without hiring someone to do it for them. If an organization allows it, the OPEN forum discussion with employees should be how to promote the organizations. If I were a business owner, I would only allow facebook access to employees that would be willing to add me to their friends list and let them know that they should be using this as a tool to promote business not a distraction from it. Who knows, that janitor may have your biggest client waiting in one of those 6,000 facebook friends he has.

[Arik Flanders]

I think it depends on the individuals work responsibilities. However, corporations and all businesses for that matter, should be encouraging their employees to engage with customers or potential customers on a regular basis via social media outlets. Considering that many of them have the resources to implement some sort of a training course on constructive social media use, they should embrace the possibilities of what the medium can provide to their bottom line.

People want to talk to people, not a business. If your company isn't personally engaging with people online, it is inevitable that you will eventually begin to lose valuable market share.

[Erik Deckers]

If you ban it, you shut off an entire channel of communication that your customers are already on. While it may not be appropriate to let everyone use it, I also think people in customer service, PR, and marketing should have access to it just so they can do their jobs.

I also think IT departments need to stop thinking they're the backbone of the entire company, and that they can dictate what is allowed and not allowed within companies. I remember when I was working for the state government, and the state's technology office had blocked all access for everyone to social media sites. As a result, I had to ask for exemptions just to find content about our agency, and we weren't allowed to use things like Facebook as a way to get our message out to the public. Never mind that I dealt with emergency communication or had to communicate important issues like that. Instead, some keyboard-pushing geekocrat determined that I didn't need Facebook because I could use email instead.

[Cissi Sherlock]

OMG No!.

I recently experienced being banned from the WorkOne offices, though they are one of my Resource Partners. That being the case, I emailed their administrator and explained to him how their clients and their own case managers use my Ning as a resource to help their clients.

Of course, my site was approved at all three WorkOne sites here in Indianapolis. I just thought it was ironic that one of the greatest networking tools, the social network, was banned from a job seeking source location.

I understand their reasoning and am grateful that they have tools in place for you to state your case for approval or denial of a specified site. There are people going there to sit on Facebook and MySpace all day long and not accomplish anything in the way of job searches. In those cases, they should monitor the user and not ban the site.

[Jon D. Speer]

Employees will be active on social media, regardless. Companies need to figure out how to adapt policies and procedures to allow the use of social media (as PK suggests). With the proliferation of smart phones, you can bet employees are checking twitter, Facebook, Smaller Indiana, etc. during breaks, lunch, and while off the clock.