Workplace use of social networking still an issue
My colleague Tim Barker wrote today about the divide among some St. Louis-area employers over whether to allow their workers to use social networking sites while they’re on the clock. He cites the concerns from some employers that they are another way for workers to waste time and the benefits to the bottom line aren’t proven.
Tim’s story quotes Christine McCarty, an account executive with St. Louis-based Mercury Multimedia, who uses these tools all the time at work. She said her company is about to close a video production deal that originated through a Twitter contact. She also smartly notes that it doesn’t work if you’re mercenary about it.
“If you are constantly promoting your brand, that’s a big turnoff to other people,” McCarty said. “You have to be involved in the discussion.”
Tim’s story says employers tend to be more open to letting workers use “business oriented” sites such as LinkedIn rather than “social” sites like Facebook and Twitter.
He also cites a University of Melbourne study that just came out yesterday. The study says, “Surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases our concentration levels and helps make a more productive workforce.”
The study’s author, Dr. Brent Coker, from the Department of Management and Marketing, says: “People who do surf the Internet for fun at work — within a reasonable limit of less than 20 percent of their total time in the office — are more productive by about 9 percent than those who don’t.”
Another strategy for skeptical employers: Measure whether the work is getting done and stop worrying so much about whether people are “wasting time.”
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Kurt's Tweets- @bfelice Hey, thanks so much for the heads-up on this. Great to see.
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