Employers tackle social networking

Sunday Business Post - Technology - September 9 2007
Read this story on the Sunday Business Post website by clicking here.

With the number of Irish people on Facebook, employers are having to decide how to deal with it, writes Dermot Corrigan

The explosive emergence of social networking website Facebook.com is provoking a heated debate in Irish workplaces.

There are currently more than 40,000 people signed up to Facebook who say they are Irish. The real number is probably bigger and is growing quickly.

The Facebook website allows registered members to chat with friends, play interactive online games, search for people they may have lost touch with over the years, make new friends with people who share their interests, and generally have fun online. It has been referred to as Bebo for grown-ups.

Employers are worried that previously productive staff are now whiling away their work time on the addictive website. However, Facebook advocates retort by saying that it is a networking tool that allows employees to build contacts and spread information, which can only be a good thing.

Ban
British employers have reacted to perceived large numbers of their staff spending work time on Facebook by banning the use of the site or blocking all access to it. Lloyds TSB, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs are among the companies reported to have blocked employees from visiting Facebook. The TUC (Trades Unions Congress) entered the debate by criticising these decisions, saying that a blanket ban was unreasonable.

Patricia Callan, director of the Small Firms Association (SFA) in Ireland, said employers were well within their rights to crack down on staff spending time on social networking sites while they were supposed to be working.

“Under a contract of employment you pay a person and they come to work and they work,” said Callan. “So if somebody is time-wasting, whether that be on the phone, not showing up, or being on a website that is not devoted to work, then a company is entitled to take disciplinary action against that person.”

“If people who have access to email and internet in the workplace just spend ten minutes a day for their own personal use then that costs Irish business over €575 million per annum."

Callan said staff using facebook was more problematic than occasionally checking email or reading an online magazine.

“It seems that Facebook is addictive and people could be on it for maybe two or three hours,” said Callan. “Most people only work a seven or eight hour day so that is a huge chunk of time wasted. Obviously employers would have to take action.”


According to Callan wasting time online was different than chatting over the watercooler or taking extra-long smoke breaks, and employers had to employ more sophisticated systems to monitor it.


“The difference is that you can be a lot more subtle about it,” said Callan. “If people are standing around the place or are going on breaks that is visible, but people can disguise the fact that they are time wasting on an internet site. That is a reason why employers might go for technological solutions that track internet usage and see what sites people are using.”


Callan said wasting company time by browsing the internet could have serious consequences for the staff member involved.


“There have been cases where companies have successfully dismissed people for spending hours and hours doing things like booking holidays,” she said.


Positive

Social media consultant Tom Raftery has a different view of the Facebook phenomenon. He said employers should embrace new technologies - such as social networking websites - and trust their staff to use them responsibly.


“I think employers should just let their staff use them,” said Raftery. “If you do not trust your staff, that is a whole other issue entirely. If they are using a social networking site, such as Facebook, the chances are they are doing it for a good reason.


Raftery said many multinational organisations were actively encouraging their staff to set up Facebook accounts.


"If employers are worried about their staff spending time on Facebook, maybe they should wonder why the Fortune 500 companies encourage their staff to be on Facebook,” he said. “Their staff are all over it. Why? Because they know it is a good thing for their company.”


Companies can organise their own private networks on facebook, which their staff can join. This can help employees from disparate geographical locations, and experts working in similar sectors, get to know each other and communicate ideas, according to Raftery.


“Companies can go in and set up groups within Facebook and encourage their employees to join those groups and start having discussions within the market segment they are in,” said Raftery.


“If you are sharing information, and you are helping other people get their work done, then you are actually being more productive” he said. “If you are in Facebook talking to people in similar companies or other branches you are quite often swapping information about work. If you are showcasing your expertise, then you are raising the company’s profile.”


Irish organisations which have their own Facebook networks include university staff at UCD, the Irish Defence Forces and Poetry Ireland.


Multinationals operating here, such as Apple, Nokia, Tesco and Allianz have all set up their own Facebook networks, that their Irish based staff are free to join.


Raftery said managers should concentrate on whether their staff were productive or not in the medium to long term, rather than monitoring every mouse-click.


“It is up to the employer to have proper metrics in place to measure the productivity of their staff, that is basic managerial stuff,” said Raftery. “If your staff are being as productive as you need them to be, then so what if they spend ten hours a week on Facebook? They are getting the job done.”


According to Raftery if staff in a company are spending too much time on Facebook, it may point to a more serious fault within the company’s processes.


“If they are not getting the job done, then that is another issue” said Raftery. “That is about managing your staff’s productivity. Maybe they are on Facebook, or YouTube, maybe they are reading a novel under the desk, or on the telephone for an hour talking to their friends about Coronation Street. It does not matter what the distraction is, you have to have management systems in place to manage your employees productivity.”


Compromise

Fergal O’Byrne, chief executive officer of the Irish Internet Association (IIA), said employers wary of Facebook - and employees addicted to poking their friends online - should find a happy medium. He said this can be done by putting in place an agreed internet usage policy.


“The implementation of the internet usage policy is where employers and employees have to work together,” he said. “Everybody knows and every company around Ireland knows that people, whether on their lunch or not, will check their personal email or book a flight or whatever, and if employers want to be rigorous they can say that is company time and against the policy and you are fired. But that does not happen.”


“An internet usage policy is very easy to write and it is just common sense,” said O’Byrne. “Employees sign it and know they are meant to do certain things and not do other things.”


O’Byrne said blocking individual websites could provoke a negative reaction from staff.


“The IIA does not recommend barring or blocking these sites,” he said. “That is a very draconian action to take. Employers should treat their employees with respect and know that they are mature individuals.”


O’Byrne said the internet was now a fact of life for companies, who should look for positive usages of the technology instead of putting up barriers.


“The days of clocking in from nine to five are over,” he said. “People can telework or mobile work, and if they are not doing their job that is a performance issue that is going to come up at their review. But if they are empowered to use the internet appropriately it can benefit the company and the employee as well.”


O’Byrne said that linkedin.com, a similar site which allows individuals in companies around the world to find others with similar work interests, was a more work focused alternative to Facebook, and that balanced use of both could be quite useful to companies.


“If you have staff using Facebook or Linkedin there is a lot of evidence to show that it can be quite beneficial,” said O’Byrne. “Linkedin particularly is a great way of making business contacts. It is phenomenally successful and I use it myself. It is not Bebo, it is not people hanging around saying what did you do last night and what music they like, it is actually people making real business connections. Meetings are set up through it, people recruit through it. So there is a huge amount of positives coming out of these sites.”


“Just because it is a bigger, faster car, that does not mean you take the keys away,” added O’Byrne. “They are powerful and they are useful and if you set the parameters by all means let people use them.”