Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Social Media VS. Productivity
Would you facebook, use your cell phone, or use company email for personal use? Apparently, that is what the current workforce is doing. All of the advancements in technology were to make workers more productive by speeding up communications, and, by default, getting faster results on the job. In effect, these tools are costing employers valuable work time. A recent study showed that almost 60% of work interruptions were due to employees using email, social media, etc. for personal reasons, while on the job. A recent survey estimates that this lost productivity is costing businesses millions of dollars. The question remains that while social media is a basic part of business today, should employees be monitored to restrict their personal use? One solution would be to have clear policies on what is and is not the acceptable use of the social media, and making sure that all employees are fully aware of what the guidelines are. Only then will employees and companies know where they stand on the issue of social media. Like it or not, social media, like facebook, are part of the current workplace and will be ongoing into the future.
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7 comments:
Do you think it would be beneficial to production if there was no policy? Meaning, you can use work time for personal emails etc…but at the end of the day you still must have x amount of work completed.
On that same line of thought, do you think social media is contributing to the changing view of the “40” hour work week?
It is really true that some employees use theirs working time to do personal business. Although employees can still finish the amount of work they are supposed to do,it's not efficiency. This is also one of the reason why companies can't meet the max efficiency. What if the workplace make a block, whenever a employee uses technology to do his personal business, the thing would be blocked. Would that make the work more efficiency?But I do agree the point that social media already became a part of our daily life. It is hard to restrict it.
Technology was made to help economy work faster and better. The right use of it ,thought,would make a lot of things easier. If employees know what they should do at certain time and be really self control,would social media still cost productivity?
I think companies should hold their employees to a certain standard. They should be able to do whatever they want just as long they get their work done. I do believe that most interruptions listed are minor. With the exception of Facebook, I have a hard time believing that employees are legitimately less efficient because of these little distraction.
In my opinion Facebook and Twitter are big distractions when it comes down to trying to get things done, but after the task is completed they seem like apart of normal day activities, checking and updating Facebook/Twitter. Maybe is companies would allow workers to be on Facebook during the workday but only give the worker a limited amount of time, say an hour and a half. The company should be allowed to track the time spent on the site and once the time is up, the site should be blocked to make the employee go back to work and finish what they were doing. That might be a good solution for students, not during school, but also after school whenever we have homework to do. We should be monitored on how much time we actually spend on Facebook while durning homework. Again, once that time limit is met the site should be shut down until all work is completed in its entirety.
Like it or not, I believe companies will be forced to conform to use social media for business. Efficiency is what they care about now from their workers, but banning websites like facebook and twitter is only a short-term solution. The number of people who utilize social media is growing steadily and so is the amount of ways to access social media. Sure a worker's computer may be blocked, but that doesn't limit them to using social media for personal use on their phone or tablet. As long as there is a rule in place to ban social media and "maximize worker productivity", workers will always find a way around it. When companies embrace these new tools, however, it may cost them a few five minute breaks from their employees, but they will gain an entire new way to function both internally in their company, and externally with customers.
-Paxton S
(in reply to Paxton S.)
thank you for the comment. I like the fact that you mentioned that social media is increasing and will prove to be problematic in the future. Major distractions in the work industry will only cause more problems in the workplace.
I do agree that this is valid, it could be that some employees are using social items to communicate to other employees.
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