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Yesterday I attempted to persuade senior HR folks of the necessity to allow social networking at work. I was presenting at the Adelaide leg of the Australian HR Industry’s annual roadshow, attempting to answer the question ‘Should Social Networking be allowed in the workplace?’
My view is strongly ‘YES!’ and here’s why:
We ask of new recruits into an organisation the following:
- to be innovative
- to problem-solve
- to be creative
- to think of new ways of lowering costs yet raising productivity
- to find new markets or new ways of serving our existing markets better
All through their primary, secondary and tertiary schooling they are cajoled and ’strongly encouraged’ to teamwork. So, whether they be natural teamworkers or not, they develop networks of learned individuals who are able to answer specialist questions across a small but slowly growing wider arena.
By the time they come into the organisation (perhaps as their second job they’ve held) they are very networked across a whole range of areas. Their networks are, to them, their ‘oxygen’.
So then what sense does it make to deny them of the ‘oxygen’ they need to be able to meet the requirements required of them (those bullet points above)?
If you deny them access to the tools they have habitually used outside of the organisation, perhaps before joining their current employer, you risk stifling the very creativity and innovation you are demanding of them. How fair is that?
Sometimes the puerile reason put forward for denying them access to their tools is ‘security’.
Of course this is a very rational argument, for we ALL know that photocopiers are safe, email is safe, that drinks with colleagues down at ‘The Queen’s Bum & Icepack’ after work are safe, aren’t they?!
After all, industrial espionage only started in 1994 with the dawning of the world wide web, didn’t it?
The organisation that denies its staff access to Twitter, Facebook, Skype, ICQ, AIM and other web tools leaves itself open to both ridicule and potential litigation due to the worker being denied access to the tools to do the job.
Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
The other is the myth that these tools are a distraction, a waste of time, in the same way that long golf lunches aren’t.
Before the internet, how did managers manage employee productivity? Of course, they didn’t need to; it was only the internet that destroyed the wonderful working bond betwixt employer and employee.
But along came the internet and lo-and-behold KPIs were born. So is it too hard to imagine that those KPIs can still operate in an environment where the parasite called ‘Social Networking’ has infiltrated the workplace?
Good grief, Charlie Brown!
Prepare to be on the end of harassment and unfair dismissal litigation, plus your own and your company’s name being dragged through the press, the blogosphere and the public imagination.
Or else wake up, smell the coffee and start realising that the landscape really has changed and won’t change back.
The genie is out of the bottle.
But the genie allows you to stay in touch with those hoards of boomers leaving or due to leave your organisation and take their priceless knowledge with them. What’s good for the goose…
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You can download my HR presentation (pdf) if you like.
Bear in mind, if you don’t understand some of the slides, it’s because you weren’t there. For a more complete context feel free to invite me up to your offices.
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