Social Media & The Workplace
Story time
Social media sites were banned at my school and I’m pretty sure that they were banned in most other schools.
I remember getting in trouble for going on one of my favourite discussion boards/forums and I thought I was in deep trouble when I was caught. I felt as if I had accessed a pornographic website and was caught red-handed.
It’s funny as my parents were called in and I thought I had done something seriously wrong and after that experience I never touched another social media site again on the school computers.
However, has this train of thought transcended into the workplace? Are the same rules being applied? Well, according to the following UNUM graph, 73.6% of businesses do not block social media sites against the 26.4% that do. What does this tell us? I feel it tells us that either bosses are also using social media sites or access to social media sites is not that detrimental to productivity.
If you’re setting regular targets that your employees need to meet then I think it’s quite obvious that most people who are mature enough will focus on meeting those deadlines and will not let social media distract them from working. I work in an environment where social media use is rampant and that is because social media is part of what we do and I don’t often see people being behind because they are on social media sites, but because they are given large loads of work to finish with no ample time to complete it in.
Question time
What’s your favourite social media site and why? Do you think social media is a distraction in the workplace? Would you equate the school example being a relatable example in the workplace?
Top social media sites
- Facebook (1.5 billion active users)
- Twitter (200 million active users)
- Google+ (235 million active users)
- Pinterest (10.4 million registered users)
- Reddit (70 million unique users)
Info-graphic provided by Employee Benefits company, Unum.
Respond in the comments section below and give your views on if you think access to social media is good for productivity or if it doesn’t really harm the workplace.
July 11, 2013
I was as a software developer and we of course have access to the internet. I don’t see any harm in having a look at social networks from time to time. The way business should combat this habit is providing targets and deadlines — just like in school. People won’t use social networks much if they know they have to complete work on deadlines.
July 11, 2013
I guess one could argue that the quality of that work would drastically go down if they were spending most of their time on social media websites.
July 12, 2013
Everyone uses Facebook at my job…. we still seem to get work done though.