A campaign to end business blocking of employee access to the Net

The value of enabling social media for employees, both inside and outside the firewall, keeps getting reinforced by study after study, yet organizations continue to block access to external sources while resisting internal implementation citing excuses ranging from bandwidth and storage limitations to fears of diminished worker productivity.

Aberdeen Group has produced another study the naysayers can ignore. Focused on talent management and employee engagement, the research brief links the use of Web 2.0 to higher levels of engagement and better company performance.

The linkage doesn’t prove that Web 2.0 was directly responsible for producing these results, however. The fact that “best-in-class” organizations are more likely to use blogs, wikis, and social networking tools than other companies could just mean that best-in-class organizations are generally more inclined to trust employees and adopt new tools they can use to collaborate and share knowledge and information.

Still, companies looking to boost engagement and improve recruiting and retention can certainly learn a lesson by studying the behaviors of those organizations that are outperforming them. According to Aberdeen’s brief, titled Web 2.0, Talent Management, and Employee Engagement (a PDF file):

• 52% of organizations that adopt blogs, wikis, and social networking tools (among others) achieved best-in-class performance levels compared to 5% for those that didn’t. (Note to Aberdeen: I would have liked a definition of “best-in-class.”)
• The same tools were used within organizations that achieved an 18% year-over-year improvement in employee engagement. Companies that didn’t use these tools grew engagement by a mere 1%.

Other highlights from the report — which aggregate findings from several Aberdeen studies — focus on…

Recruiting — A 45% increase in spending on “software that links to networking site (e.g. Facebook or LinkedIn) or other communities of practice” as part of the recruiting process will increase internal recruiters’ ability to connect with potential recruits. These tools also let employees post messages to “lend a voice to the market on the work culture at a particular company.”

Onboarding — Social networking is being used to connect newly-hired employees with mentors and coaches as well as build relationships with other employees. “In addition,” the brief notes, “blogs and wikis are also used as a means for a new employee to provide content/commentary on a topic at which he/she is an expert where others within the organization are struggling.”

Learning and development — About a third of organizations surveyed for an upcoming study from Aberdeen said the biggest growth in learning and development over the next year will come from “informal learning.” The investment these companies will make in blogs, social networks, and communities will “stimulate peer-to-peer learning and ideation, as well as facilitate communities of practice in which organizations can leverage the collective knowledge of their employees.”

With the introduction of Yammer, Present.ly, and other internal-facing presence tools, it’s too bad the Aberdeen report was focused exclusively on the first wave of social media tools. But the mere fact that Aberdeen joins companies like McKinsey, Gartner, and Forrester in endorsing these tools as drivers of business improvement can only help those trying to make the case for internal social media with those inclined to resist it.

I talk to an increasing number of people who wake up in the morning and instantly grab their Blackberry from the bedside table to check work email. Dealing with work on your smartphone is a huge example of the end of work-life balance, but it’s not the only one. Conference calls with Asia at 2 a.m., getting reports done while on vacation, following work-related developments online over the weekend…it’s all typical for knowledge workers. Just as the news cycle has gone 24 hours, so has the work cycle.

It is because nobody outside of the assembly line works from 9 to 5 that the use of at-work networks for non-work-related activities should not only be tolerated by encouraged. A recent study — not conducted by an organization with a financial interest in helping companies bloock access — there are perfectly legitimate reasons for employees to engage in these non-work or semi-work-related activities while at the office and, further, that blocking could backfire and result in lost productivity.

(The study was published in the June issue of the CyberPsychology and Behaviour Journal.)

Leave it to some workers to want to return to the days of the clear line between work and leisure. CNN is reporting that employees are making noise about being compensated for the time they spend on their Blackberries while away from the office. Producers and reporters for ABC News have evidently reached an agreement with management to pay them for their smartphone activities. Lawyers are warning companies that they can expect more such demands.

Talk about shooting themselves in their collective feet. If a company pays you for the time you spend doing work away from the office, then they have every right to expect you will devote every minute in the office to work. And that’s just denial of the 24-hour work cycle that can only lead to complications of multiple stripes. From compensation practices to the fine line between online activities with and without work dimensions (for instance, representing your company well while engaging in primarily non-work networking), things could get very ugly in a hurry. It seems companies aren’t the only ones that need to wake up to the realities of the networked world. Add greedy, clueless employees (and, in some cases, the unions that represent them) to those ranks, too.

It’s gotten hard to pay attention to technology news without hearing a report from Websense or Challenger, Gray & Christmas or some consultancy tallying up the lost productivity companies suffer as employees spend time on Facebook and other non-work-related websites. The numbers sometimes reach into the billions of dollars. How do companies survive?

The answer of course, is that the studies are a load of crap. Not taken into account is the fact that a lot of the time spent on these sites does have a work-related dimension to it. Also not taken into account is the fact that workers put extra time to make up for the time spent online, regardless of whether that time is spent at the office or at home. And let’s not forget the amount of time the average knowledge worker spends doing work at home anyway. (Raise your hand if the first thing you do when you wake up is reach for your Blackberry to check your work email.)

The truth of this is borne out by news last week that worker productivity has increased more quickly in the first quarter of 2008 than previously reported. I read this is the June 5 edition of USA Today that was delivered to my hotel room:

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.6% in the January-March period, faster than the government’s initial estimate of 2.2% a month ago.

This is consistent with other Labor Department reports, not to mention one from the United Nations, that shows generally increasing productivity with the U.S. leading the pack.

How can that reconcile with the billions of dollars in lost productivity attributable to Facebook? The answer is simple: It can’t.

Todd Dwyer, Community Liaison/Environment for Dell, posted an item to the Direct2Dell blog announcing another in a series of environmental conversations taking place over at the company’s ReGeneration site. This one’s a contest in which Facebook members use the Graffiti tool to to express their views on what it means to “Go Green.” Dell’s giving away a green Inspiron laptop to the winner.

In his post, Dwyer noted that Dell has unblocked employee access to Facebook so the company’s workers can view and participate in the contest themselves. Dwyer also wrote that other social media sites have been unblocked, as well. Dell continues to display the characteristics of an enlightened company. Must be a heck of a place to work!

A study from a research group in the UK has determined that employees who take short breaks online — using Facebook, for instance — can improve employee productivity. MindLap International looked at European women from seven countries. The study deliberately provoked stress among the test subjects by having them complete computer-based intelligence tests. The women were then given 10-minute breaks to go online before returning to the test. The breaks reduced stress and improved productivity.

Read the full article from the Financial Post.

I run a side business that offers extremely in-depth professional development online. I use a blogging platform for the business, partly because it’s so easy to add multimedia elements to the courses. I incorporate videos and screencasts, along with a fair amount of audio content, all of which supplements the text and breaks up the chore of too much reading online.

In order to make the multimedia content available without killing my small server, I host it on a multimedia hosting site. The one I use is LibSyn — Liberated Syndication — which is primarily a podcast hosting service. A number of companies, it turns out, block access to LibSyn. I guess they don’t want employees listening to podcasts. I can think of a number of issues that might lead companies to block sites like this, none of them insurmountable.

But here’s the rub: Companies pay the registration fee for employees to participate in these professional development sessions, then block access to the service that delivers the audio and video files, keeping employees from taking advantage of the workshop they paid for. As a result, employees have to go home to participate in the workshop, a work-related activity they undertake on their own time. Then they get slammed for doing non-work-related activities at work.

The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Ragan Communications has posted an article (in which I was quoted) dealing with the issue of employers blocking access to social media sites. The response has been interesting. I started responding in the comment area, but that’ll just take too much room. Here are the points made by various commenters and my responses (I’m not naming the authors of the comments because the personality issue is not relevant):

In response to my assertion that most people won’t abuse the privilege: “Most people abuse everything they can get their hands on.”

The deep cynicism that characterizes this statement aside, I have to keep coming back to one of my ke points: I’m not suggesting a lack of rules, only that the rules be addressed by management and not technology. I’m all for rules.

But, okay, let’s address the cynicism. The author of this remark would also feel comfortable with a statement like, “Maybe there’s a little bit of good in most people, but by and large they’re bad.” You can brand me an optimist, but I don’t believe that. What’s more, people can receive incentives to do the right thing if an innate belief in doing the right thing isn’t enough. In business, those incentives come in the form of promotions, raises, and bonuses, none of which will be coming your way if you don’t produce.

There have been plenty of studies supporting the nature of incentives that are effective in the workplace. Access to Facebook won’t change any of them.

I argue that denying access to everyone is tantamount to saying, “We don’t trust any of you as far as we can throw you.” Here’s a comment: “Rules and laws don’t diminish trust necessarily. They facilitate function. Do you distrust your government because of speed limits? C’mon.”

Blocking access is neither a rule nor a law. It’s an impediment, an obstacle. A rule says, “Company computer resources will be used primarily for work purposes.” Enforcement of the rule is a supervisor’s job. I just don’t understand why people have an issue with this. As I’ve noted so many times, nobody is checking your handbag or briefcase as you walk into work to make sure you don’t have a skin mag or a Sodoku book, even though your employer could implement such a draconian policy. No, most companies leave such performance issues in a supervisor’s hands. Why block access to websites for fear people will use them for the same purposes?

“The business of business is to make money. You get paid money to help your company make money. Chit chatting on Facebook, watching vides on YouTube and other social media sites is best left to your personal time, not time your employer is paying you to help make profit or reach targets for the public good.”

This statement is so wrong-minded on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. Of course, the opening two sentences are dead on. But I have to shake my head at the notion that the time you spend on social media sites is somehow at odds with the profit motive.

Companies (and the author of this statement) are mired in a work model that hasn’t existed for years. What’s changed?

• Knowledge work is not an 9-5 job. Knowledge workers come in early, stay late, and work weekends. They take work home. How much of the time you spend at home is truly “personal time” and how much is time spent on work matters? If your typical work week consumes 65 hours, when, exactly, are you supposed to do those things that, in the 1950s and 60s, was relgated to “personal time?” Work-life integration suggests a trade-off: If I’m going to do work at home, I’m also going to live part of my life at work.
• In knowledge work, productivity is not measured by the number of widgets you produce in an hour. Is work getting done? Is it getting done on time? Does it meet the quality requirements that were set for the assignment? If the answer is “yes,” then your organization is not suffering lost productivity. And by the way, productivity in the U.S. is quite high and growing, according to studies from both the U.S. Department of Labor and the United Nations.
• Multi-directional conversations are the norm. Word of mouth matters. Companies used to count on employees to be brand evangelists and company advocates at PTA meetings, family dinners, and church on Sundays. Today, that extends to the social media space. Employees involved in online communities not only get great feedback that benefits the company, but they can solve customer problems and bolster the company’s reputation.
• Work gets done on social networks; it’s not all idle chit-chat. Think an engineer won’t join an engineering group where he’ll learn about new techniques and be able to bounce ideas off other engineers? Think a salesman won’t watch a YouTube video that addresses a sales technique? Blocking access to these networks inhibits professional development and absolutely can thwart productivity.

The business of business is to make money, but the means by which money is made has evolved. Sorry for the cliche, but the only thing that remains constant is change, and the nature of work has changed. Why this surprises people — and why they resist it — is something that eludes me. After all, you’d be hard-pressed to find an indentured servant in America these days, even though it was once a common business practice.

This item is cross-posted from my primary blog.

A human resources publication, of all things, has a nice article about the benefits of Web 2.0 services in the workplace. The Personnal Today article begins,

Most human resources managers would rather their staff didn’t spend all day on Facebook. But so-called Web 2.0 technologies also offer employers real opportunities, argues Jessica Twentyman.

The article covers several approaches different companies are taking to social media, including one organization — T*Mobile — which (among other things) set up a Facebook group for its newly hired college grads, allowing them to network informally before their first day on the job. It turned out to be a highly successful idea.

Hat tip to Tony Molloy for pointing me to the article.

by guest blogger Neville Hobson

During last summer, there was a spate of mainstream media commentary that social networks like Facebook serve little or no purpose from a business point of view.

Much reporting about companies banning Facebook in the workplace. We were even treated to a variety of opinion that said things like the cost of lost productivity in Australia was about A$5 billion annually, and $130 million a day in the UK.

Now it’s the turn of Twitter to come under some scrutiny with a post by Irish entrepreneur Pat Phelan.

Never mind what are Twitter costs, what’s the cost of Twitter? asks Pat in a post that quotes some back-of-the-envelope calculations to arrive at a lost productivity total of 30 million hours per month.

There’s a monetary value attached to this:

[…] Our estimates for 2008 suggest @ a minimum lost productivity cost of $20/hour this will represent $300M/month so $900M for first quarter, $600M per month for 2nd quarter so $1.8B, $1.2b per month for 3rd quarter so $3.6b and $2.4b/month for 4th quarter so $7.2b.

In total Twitter should cost economy around $13.5b in 2008!! Isn’t that FB value?

But why only highlight a negative point? What about potential positives? Plenty of people see that there are positives.

I left a comment earlier today on Pat’s post which said in part:

[…] Even without any credible facts to hand that support any claim to show some business productivity benefit from using Twitter, lumping everything into a ‘lost productivity’ bucket makes no sense at all.

While it looks like there might be some tongue in cheek in Pat’s post, it does still highlight a valid issue - how do you look at rapidly-emerging communication channels such as Twitter from a business perspective: a waste of everyone’s time or with some productivity value?

I use Twitter. A lot. Jaiku too (which is where I most frequently see Pat). I’ve found that these tools are becoming quite an indispensable means of engaging with some people, a means that complements (and sometimes, replaces) some of the other ways in which I communicate with them, eg, phone, email and IM.

I guess I’m on Twitter and Jaiku on average an hour every day. That’s actually quite concise for being active in both networks. But I use TwitKu, a web-based tool that lets me interact with both simultaneously in side-by-side windows on my screen. A terrific time saver.

So let’s just run some numbers here:

• 1 hour/day = 7 hours/week = 365 hours/year. Reverse the annual figure back into months = an average of roughly 30.4 hours/month.
• Taking Pat’s $ figures, this would work out at a monetary value during the course of 2008 at $608 a month or $7,300.00 for the year.
• That’s the minimum value of the time I spend on Twitter and Jaiku. Let’s split the value equally at $3,650.00 each per year.

Far from being a waste of productivity time, it looks like an absolute bargain.

If I can engage directly with people around the world via these tools in a way that lets me discuss thoughts, ideas, points, etc, and make quick decisions or actions that via other means (email, for instance) would take five or six times as long (meaning more $/£/€), then I’m going to continue doing it.

I see tools like Twitter as productivity enhancers, not wasters. $608 a month looks like pretty good productivity value to me.

Twitter (and Jaiku) isn’t about idle chit-chat - but it can be just that if you want it to be (and it is only that for some people).

For some highly credible examples of specific benefits from using Twitter, go and read Dan York and the 10 ways he’s learned to get value out of Twitter.

It all works for me as well.

I completely forgot to blog this — I meant to — but Luke Armour interviewed me on his BlogTalkRadio show, “The Rundown,” earlier this month. The subject was Stop Blocking, the wannabe grassroots campaign I started out of frustration over the kneejerk company action of blocking employee access to online content.

In case you haven’t heard a BlogTalk Radio show before, it’s essentially a radio call-in-like experience, with audiences listening live online and calling in through a phone line. The entire session is recorded and made available as a download and as a podcast (through subscription to the series). There were a few call-ins that spiced up the session, and Luke’s a solid interviewer.

I was also impressed with BTR’s functionality. It would be a kick for Neville and me to record an occasional episode of FIR this way, much as we’ve done with our two SkypeCast efforts (which produced quesitonable results).

This post is cross-posted to my regular blog.