Who’s afraid of the big bad social network?

Published : 26 August 2010

by Julian Fagandini, Associate

We are increasingly hearing from our clients about their concerns that the social media phenomenon is starting to disrupt their business. Some ask us whether they should either establish mechanisms to manage staff usage or simply block all access to social networking sites. Others come to us from a different angle and wonder whether there are advantages to allowing open access and, if so, how to manage this.

Our view is that most companies already have lots of policies to deal with employee “personal” use of work time and facilities. People are not usually locked into the office during standard working hours and can pop out to the local shops (and perhaps come back and have their lunch working at their desk). It’s not unknown for people to make personal telephone calls on an office landline or to have personal conversations with colleagues (perhaps bemoaning England’s latest disaster at a major sports tournament, always a good topic to boost office morale).

So, it seems no more than common sense to apply a social networking policy (whether draconian or flexible) that is coherent with your other policies that address similar issues in the workplace.

The reality is that social network use is increasing substantially (according to recent Nielsen UKOM data, nearly 25% of all UK internet time is now spent on social networks and blogs) and that employees may therefore wish to use some of their inevitable downtime during office hours to access social networks. This may replace things like engaging with colleagues in their own office environment and there are certainly interesting organisational behaviour issues here for companies about their internal cohesion and the interpersonal relationships between members of staff.

And it’s actually pretty much impossible to stop people using social networks from work even if you ban web access from the browser. It is possible, although admittedly clunky, to access the web including social networks via email. It is very possible, and increasingly so, to access the web including social networks via your mobile device. The iPad and the inevitable tablet clones that will follow will only increase that possibility.

In addition, many consumer-focused companies are increasingly using social networks for outreach to their customer bases in areas like marketing and customer service. Companies increasingly want to know, and want their employees to be aware of and positively active in, how their company is perceived on social networks. It is going to be increasingly difficult for companies for whom social networks become quite strongly embedded in their business models to rigidly block access to their employees’ use of social networks from the office.

As more businesses actively use social networks to engage with their current and potential customers, and as social network use becomes second nature to people in general, the swing over time will be away from blocking access and towards managing access. It was reported last year in a survey of 1,400 CIOs at US companies (commissioned by Robert Half Technology) that over half (54%) completely block social networking access from work. By comparison, the same survey indicated that 10% of those companies surveyed allowed unrestricted access and the remainder imposed some restrictions, such as limiting it to business purposes only. My instinct would be that the 54% number will be a high point for “blocking” and it will only decrease over time. How the balance plays out between “policy-controlled” access and “open” access is more difficult to predict but both will rise in the short term.

Technical solutions are generally great for solving technical problems, for example ensuring that employee access to websites does not inadvertently download malware into company business systems. But, technical solutions are a poor approach to dealing to human behaviour issues in the workplace.

Fundamentally, we think that this is all about managing your staff effectively. In the early days, those responsible for company policies in areas like this find themselves all at sea with things they simply don’t understand and of which they have no experience. The default reaction is “ban it” but, over time, more nuanced and effective management approaches develop and the majority learn from the experiences, both the good and the bad, of those who try new approaches first.