Should staff be allowed to use
social networking sites such asFacebookat
work, or should they be banned?
The issue was the subject of heated debate at the
Corporate Executive
Programme at Gleneagles Hotel this month.
Fifty executives across a range of disciplines and industries
debated the merits of
allowing staff access to social networking from their
desktops.
Many were concerned that allowing social networking could open
the floodgates to staff wasting time on a massive scale, or perhaps
expose firms to unecessary
security risks
At the same time, executives realised social networking could
become the way to do business in the future, replacing phone and
e-mail as the communication medium of choice.
Providing access to social networking at work will be essential
if firms want to compete for top talent among a generation who have
grown used to using it for communication.
PR company Edelman is
firmly in in the pro-Facebook camp. Its UK CEO, Robert Phillips,
told the CEP that the company is already reaping financial benefits
by encouraging its staff to use social networking.
Over the past year, the company has shaved 1% off its bottom
line by encouraging its staff to use websites as a recruitment
tool.
Phillips said recruiting this way was not only cheaper than
using recruitment consultants, but has proved to be more effective
at finding the right people.
"We get a better quality recruit. They are much more engaged
with the firm and who the firm is," he said.
It's also better for the candidates. They can get a much more
rounded picture of the company, its good and bad points before they
come for an interview, he says.
Formal footing
The company has been recruiting in this way informally for the
past year. But Phillips plans to put the scheme on a more formal
footing. "I am looking at a model where people can be rewarded for
recruiting new staff," he said.
For Edleman, there is another compelling business reason to
encourage staff to use Facebook. The company needs to be able to
advise it clients on the potential of social networking for
advertising and brand building. "Digital and social media make up
10% of our business. Its going to reach 25% in three years," he
said.
"We ask people to respect the fact that they are at work and not
to abuse the internet. In the olden days people phoned their
friends from work. If people want social networking conversations
rather than watercooler conversations that's fine," he says. "I
think we command better internal relationships because of it. It
fosters a sense of openness and trust,"
The international drinks manufacturer,
Diageo,
takes a more cautious approach. It will allow some departments to
access social networking sites, if they have a business reason for
doing so. But it is also aware the social networking has the
potential to damage the company's reputation if it is misused by
staff at work.
"We rule by exception," said Claudia Natanson, chief information
security officer. "We don't allow carte blanche. Social networking
is fine for creative organisations, but we have social
responsibility to deal with as well."
Comliance demands
For other companies the demands of regulatory compliance mean
they have to take a tough line on social networking.
Mitsubishi UFJ Securities
International took the decision to ban use of social networking
and web-based e-mail at work, following a consultation paper from
the Financial Services
Authority in May 2007.
The FSA intended to require financial services firms to record
all all forms of electronic communications used to conduct
financial transactions.
Timothy Vaughan, managing director for internal control and
quality assurance, said it was the company had no means at that
time to identify and monitor trade-related communications going via
these sites. In fact, it was not aware then that any deals were
being executed over Facebook,etc.
Vaughan was also concerned about the impact of staff browsing at
work on the network.
"We were seeing really a substantial increase in the use of
sites last year. For instance web-based e-mail started to use up a
lot of bandwidth. It does start to have repercussions for overall
message speed and information flow," he says.
"People were trying to get data from websites for legitimate
reasons, but people were also going onto websites for video
streaming, and it was difficult to know what they were doing."
Research showed that a small number of people in the firm were
responsible for a large proportion of web use.
"People use the internet and phone for personal reasons, but
this was more serious. There were some people making a huge number
of website posts a day."
One option would have been simply to increase the bandwidth of
the network. But the firm decided to consult its staff first to see
what impact removing access to social networking would have on the
business.
"We went through a consultation. We wanted to find out if there
was legitimate business use, but no one came forward and said there
was," he said. "The simplest thing was to prevent access at work,
and say let's get connected again in future if there are genuine
business benefits."
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