While yet another completely bogus, self-serving studyhas assigned a completely unrealistic dollar amount to employee use of social networks on the job, an unlikely voice has arisen in opposition to blocking employee access.
Ann Cavoukian, the minister privacy commissioner for the Canadian province of Ontario, has called blocking employee access a mistake. According to an article in itbusiness.ca, Cavoukian said, “It’s like waving the proverbial red flag in front of your staff -– it’s almost a challenge to them to find a way around it.”
By itself, that wouldn’t lead most employeres to eschew blocking — after all, they may reason, employees who want to find a way around policies should simply be fired. But Cavoukian doesn’t stop there, noting that bans can often be counterproductive. For example, she said, finding a way to get to the sites they want to can actually take longer than just going to an unblocked site.
Cavoukian was speaking in the wake of a study released by Morse plc, a London-based company that makes money helping companies block employee access to site. Yep, another completely unbiased study by an organization with not self-interest wrapped up in the results.
Morse conducted its survey with 1,460 U.K. office workers. The results: 57% spend 40 minutes per day on average visiting social networks. That adds up to a full week each year, the value of which is, according to Morse, US $2.4 billion dollars in lost productivity.
Morse consultant Phillip Wicks called employee access to social networks “a productivity black hole.” Clearly he hasn’t seen — or has ignored — the unbiased reasearch that shows employees with access to social networks are actually more productive than those without it.
And, of course, the study doesn’t not take into account the hours these employees work in excess of the minimum eight-hour day, the amount of work they take home, and the amount of time spent on social networks that produces a benefit to the organization.
It’s reassuring to know I’m not alone in this assessment. According to Robin Wauters writing in TechCrunch Europe:
Maybe it’s just the concept of ‘business hours’ that isn’t something the new generation of office workers is apt at dealing with, considering they grew up living in a fragmented world where social media make up integral parts of their lives that cannot simply be turned off. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing or a management problem, but one thing it is most definitely not: the fault of Twitter or Facebook.
Or do you really think that guy next to you who spends hours staring at his Facebook news feed is suddenly going to be way more productive when the IT department blocks access to the site?
One more survey to ignore, move along now, nothing to see here.
(Hat tip to Tony Molloy for point out the TechCrunch Europe piece.)
Kudos to Cavoukian, who might also talk about another way in which blocking access is counterproductive: killing employee engagement leading to less enthusiastic and satisfied workers.
Kudos to Robin Wauters.
And to the self-serving, deceptive, methodology-challenged dolts at Morse plc: Fail.
18 comments ↓
Cavoukian is a great thought leader in the social media and privacy space. Smart and forthright.
However, the Ontario Government blocks at least Facebook and YouTube for its employees. Even the communications staff.
That would be a good place to start lifting bans.
Twitter Comment
Good post by @shel on position taken by Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @thornley: Good post by @shel on position taken by Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Bravo Ann C! RT @mikekujawski – Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post] (via @shel)
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT: @mikekujawski Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post] via @shel
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post] via @shel
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @thornley Good post by @shel on position taken by Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @shel Ontario privacy minister opposes companies blocking social media access: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Great post @shel on position taken by Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner on social networks in the workplace [link to post] via @thornley:
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Ontario privacy minister opposes companies blocking social media access: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @Lissansky: RT @shel: Ontario Privacy Commissioner opposes companies blocking social media access: [link to post] #socialmedia #yam
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @shel: Ontario privacy minister opposes companies blocking social media access: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @shel: Ontario Privacy Commissioner opposes companies blocking social media access: [link to post] #socialmedia
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Canadian privacy commissioner opposes blocking social media after another misleading survey [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
RT @Terry_Foster: Canadian privacy commissioner opposes blocking social media after another misleading survey [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Canadian privacy commissioner opposes blocking social media sites after misleading survey: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Canadian privacy commissioner opposes blocking after UK services … [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
[...] The debate rages on over whether social networks (and Twitter, and YouTube, and, and, and) have any legitimacy in the workplace, fueled in no small part by people who sell tools to block them. [...]
Leave a Comment