Sunday, December 5, 2010

How do online networks influence employee’s work performance?

Online social networks are growing rapidly around the world. More than 500 million active users are using for example Facebook. And 50% of them use Facebook daily. According to a global digital life research. This development can be compared with a mass movement or a really at the stock market. Everybody wants to be part of it, because nobody wants to be behind, excluded, or simply miss something. And it seems that everybody is only seeing the bride sight of this development. From the employees point of view it is very nice to find old friends from school. It is so easy to invite people to a party or a meeting. Everybody can share pictures, movies, and information. There are almost no limits for anything.

On top of that online social networks are reachable 24 hours a day and seven days a week (247). That includes working hours due to Internet access at work desks computers and other devises like mobile phones.

From companies point of view social networks can also have a lot of benefits. Using social networks allows companies to filter traffic to blog posts, sales along with giving you an excellent way to stay in touch with your consumer base. According to Julian Birkinshaw allowing employees social activities during working hours sends a message like I trust you doing the right things and will evaluate you by your outputs.

A survey of the consulting firm Robert Half Technology shows, that 54% of US workplaces are blocked. According to the survey only 19% of the 1,400 asked companies allow the use for business purposes and 10% permit the use for any kind of personal use. Those companies, which block the use of online social networks, must have good reasons for that. According to an article written by Lucinda Watrous the concerns are often bandwidth, liability, malware, and productivity.

From my point of view the biggest concern is productivity. The distraction potential in online networks is very high. If something changes by one of somebodies contacts he or she gets a message about the change with a link to it. Therefore this change is only one click away. Ones I’m locked-in he or she is able to see who of their contacts are online. Mostly it starts with a short message and develops to a chat. To withstand this opportunities cost a great deal of self discipline unfortunately most people don’t have.

Let’s assume this distraction cost an employee one hour of his working time each day. Let’s also assume average cost per working hour and employee is 50 €. Assuming a 40 hours working week it will be 12.5% of the employees working time and will cost the company 10,000 € each year.

And don’t forget the security issue along with confidential information and malware.

No doubt online social networks have direct and maybe indirect benefits for companies but from my point of view not at every workplace. To handle this challenge an online network using police can help to guide the use of such networks. I suggest the following main handling points:

1. Don’t block online social network platforms

2. Allow private use during breaks

3. Make your compliance ability perfectly clear from the beginning

With this policy a company sends a message of trust to its employee's, hands over the responsibility using it according to the policy, and will be able to profit from online social networks directly as well as indirectly.

1 comment:

Christopher Tunnard said...

The most interesting point you make is about productivity, and I would have liked to see more examples, as there's a lot out there on it. As it is, your sources are few and there are no references (I found them myself.) See Sergei's post for a still-incomplete but more thought-through treatment of the subject.