Should employers embrace social networking?
Came up at yesterdays management meeting, where i even supprised myself in voting against it. Which as some will know is a bit odd :p
Not a new topic I know, but do bosses now have to accomodate the social networking needs of their employees? I'm aware some big corps have their own internal facilities, and the net is awash with stories of employees being caught out skiving/slandering etc. Ultimately i'm just interested in your view of the topic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7695716.stm
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Not general purpose ones, no. Specialist business contact type ones though are a potential tool if it suits your company's aims.
Unless your company is trying to improve PR at which point the PR people should be using them of course.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
We get a 15 minute quote time at work, which means if we did want to spend our entire lunch break on facebook we couldn't, but does stop people dossing off all day.
Can't say I get the whole 'vital to business' vibe about it, it's a very unprofessional tool for business. I say do what you like on your lunch break/coffee breaks, but don't mix business and pleasure.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
I fail to see why social networking sites should be treated as an exception to any rules.
Are you allowed to use the internet at work for personal reasons? It's a simple question IMO.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
I fail to see why social networking sites should be treated as an exception to any rules.
Are you allowed to use the internet at work for personal reasons? It's a simple question IMO.
What about using social networks for business reasons?
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
What about using social networks for business reasons?
If it's business, it's business.
If it's personal, it's personal.
It's a VERY easy distinction to make. Social networking adds no more complexity into any situation.
It's like trying to justify working on your CV by saying "well, what about using word processing for business purposes?"
Plus, if you are doing it at the business level, then you use business tools to do it. Facebook and myspace are NOT business tools.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
Facebook and myspace are NOT business tools.
Unless you are in recruitment where they are, especially Facebook.
Although this might not be the case everywhere, it is in London. About 10 minutes after a friend of mine sets his employment status to "out of contract" or something similar, he starts getting phone calls from agents asking what he is up to and what he is looking for in the next contract.
But yes, I agree, there shouldn't be an exception made for social networks, they are covered by the same internet usage policy as everything else.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
Facebook and myspace are NOT business tools.
No, but they do help by assisting various HR departments to catch skiving staff :)
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lee @ SCAN
No, but they do help by assisting various HR departments to catch skiving staff :)
Natural selection at it's finest.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
When I blocked Facebook/MySpace/YouTube at work it was less than 5 mins until I got someone phoning to ask, and that was someone from the HR department :surprised:
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
the thing is facebook by nature is recreational and un-professional, it shouldn't be a place for ur work friends, but ur actual friends. MySpace should be for people u've never met, nor should because odds are they're pedos.
there are alternatives for professionals, also stuff like linkedin or BIO on bloomberg.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
SOCIAL networking is hardly a professional thing to be doing. I wouldn't ever consider going on things like myspace/facebook and so on if I was working (and I do work, even at 15, in situations where I could).
I doubt that I would ever use an internet connection at a place of work for anything but buisness, simply to make sure that my backside is covered and that nothing nasty can creep up behind me and decide that I'm not working hard enough and kick me off of the work force.
As TheAnimus said, although he used extremely bad grammar for some reason (you're not normally that bad.. what's up?), facebook is by nature recreational. There are alternatives for professionals and for buisnesses and they are what should be used in workplaces.
Seperate buisness and pleasure or make sure that you're irreplacable. Although, if you're irreplacable you're a little dead anyway. No promotion prospects....
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
0iD
Once they mentioned that this was the findings of a think-tank, I knew enough :p
Businesses should be using proper CRM applications for doing this, not some website designed for social use. The business products have the business tools that make it more then a HTML-formatted catalogue of your friends.
I actually performed the roll-out here a few years ago of InterAction (LexisNexis owned) and it couldn't be any further removed from these "social networking" sites.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
Plus, if you are doing it at the business level, then you use business tools to do it. Facebook and myspace are NOT business tools.
This thread isn't about Facebook and myspace, it's about social networking. Which can be done with tools other than Facebook and myspace. I deal with a lot of people who use LinkedIn as part of scientific collaboration for example. Then there are microsoft business tools as well which could be thought of as social networking.
Re: Should employers embrace social networking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
This thread isn't about Facebook and myspace, it's about social networking. Which can be done with tools other than Facebook and myspace. I deal with a lot of people who use LinkedIn as part of scientific collaboration for example. Then there are microsoft business tools as well which could be thought of as social networking.
"social networking needs of their employees"
I read that as being at the personal level.
Now, if the thread was about "social networking needs of their business".....I would have a completely different view. Perhaps 0iD meant it as business needs and I have read it wrong *shrug*