Use social networking to drive communication
October 30, 2008
Yesterday I read a news item on the BBC about a Demos study that has advised employers to embrace social networking sites such as facebook and myspace in the workplace, rather than enforcing blanket bans and dismissing staff who spend time on the sites as ‘time-wasters’.
The report suggests that social networking sites can help the way staff communicate, and can have a positive effect on communication and creativity, if implemented in the correct way. Peter Bradwell, the report’s author said:
“Banning Facebook and the like goes against the grain of how people want to interact. Often people are friends with colleagues through these networks and it is how some develop their relationships.”
However the report did warn that employers need to ensure the use of social networking sites in work can be linked to the achievement of business goals, and that staff who are abusing their rights on the internet should still be managed and disciplined if necessary. This poses the question of how to monitor the use of social networking sites when there may be legitimate reasons for staff to spend time on them. How would you identify an unreasonable amount of time on facebook?
Another issue is that the positive use of social networking assumes that all staff are motivated and excited about their work and will therefore use their social networking rights for communicative and innovative means. However we all know that many employees who spend a lot of time on facebook at work are doing so because they are bored, disinterested in their work or de-motivated in some way. I personally would urge caution in simply allowing all staff to visit sites of their choice at any time of the day, without a clear plan of how the company is going to tap into the benefits of the social networking culture.
One good way to use the concept of social networking in the workplace without the possibility of abuse, is to build a company version of a social networking site, perhaps through the company intranet. A while back I reported about how McDonalds were using an internal blogging scheme in the US, and Orange is currently building an in-house social networking platform for its staff. I think this is a great idea and, if implemented effectively, will help companies to move forward and succeed by using new cultural ways of communicating.
Things to consider:Faraone Platforms available online
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