Three Reasons Why Allowing Employees Access to Social Media Benefits an Organization

Most of the articles I read about employee use of social media focus on the downside risks -- security threats, loss of productivity, leaks of confidential information. If that were the only side to the story the decision would be simple. But it isn't. There are several compelling reasons why allowing your employees to access social media in the workplace is actually beneficial to the organization. In most cases these benefits largely outweigh the risks, which could be mitigated by effective training and communication.

1. CONNECTED EMPLOYEES ARE MORE EFFECTIVE. Nobody can work in complete isolation, whatever they may think. To be effective and productive you rely on help from other people and the best way to be sure of getting that help is to have a strong network of people who can answer your questions or proactively share with you a useful new method, tool or idea. This is maybe intuitive but if your intuition doesn't get it then I recommend you read How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers, the Harvard Business Review article about Robert Kelley and Janet Caplan's 1993 study at Bell Labs that demonstrated this point.  Connecting for performance works best with knowledge workers, but everyone else benefits, too.

2. CONNECTED EMPLOYEES BOOST YOUR REPUTATION. People who are connected and use social media can boost the viability and reputation in many different ways, and much more cheaply than paid community managers. Very often they amplify your organizations's messages, sharing your posts, tweets and updates with their friends. Just by being active they also send a clear message to the community that you are a good employer and they can bring visibility to new audiences you perhaps don't target or don't know how to target. Even if an employee does not comment on your business most likely they have written "Works at ..." on their profiles, which can be seen by people looking for a good place to work or interested in your products.

3. CONNECTED EMPLOYEES ARE MORE MOTIVATED. In theory you could get the maximum possible productivity out of people by banning any kind of break or recreation, but in reality this just makes people stay at their desks. Experience has shown that people actually work more when they get breaks to recharge their batteries, talk to colleagues, get away from the work for a moment. That's why even the most repressive organizations allow their employees coffee breaks, once seen a waste of time but now pretty much universally accepted.  When employees can take little breaks to keep up to date with their world they return to their work with new energy. There will always be a small minority who abuse this opportunity, just like there have always been people who tool too many coffee breaks, make too many personal photocopies, talk too much with colleagues and so on.

Clearly there are also some downside risks, though these can mostly be avoided by effective training and communication. Simply banning access could eliminate some risks but it also costs you the benefits. In any case you still have to do the training and communication to make sure employees know how to use social media safely because they can always use smartphones in the workplace or use the social media at home.


Related Posts on Social Media Restrictions

Lectures, Workshops, Coaching, Writing
For lectures, workshops, coaching and writing on this and other communication topics visit http://andrewhennigan.com or email conseil@andrewhennigan.com or call me on 0033 6 79 61 42 81.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear Best Regards: How to Start and End Your Emails

Image
Last year I wrote that to make your email more effective you should put meaningful content into the subject line, keep your messages short and consider other channels (see Three Timesaving Tips for Email ). I also wrote some guidelines about common culture problems when email crosses borders (see Three Non-Obvious Ways Culture Affects Email ). But there is one other question about international email that comes up regularly in workshops: how should you start and finish? Do I use "Dear", "Hi",or "Hello" to start with? What do I do if I don't know if the person I am writing to is a man or a woman? "What is the difference between "Best regards  and "Warm regards"? This is a question that puzzles many people and a while ago it stressed me, too. But the answers to these questions are perhaps easier than you imagine. DEAR MR/MRS WHATEVER . First of all, at the start of a mail you probably have some sort of salutation. How do you kn
Read more

Reverting to Emails: Confusion and the Indian English Language

Image
In workshops about global email many people focus on their issues communicating with colleagues in India. Partly this is related to some deeper cultural differences that lead to misunderstandings. But many problems are also caused by the different ways in which Indian people use English. There are some "English" words that you will probably only hear in India, like " stepney ", their word for a spare wheel. A hundred years ago this term was coined in the UK and was exported to India where it survived. Back home only a few antique vehicle enthusiasts have any idea what it means. There are also many English expressions that are peculiar to India, like "What is your good name?". But in both cases an English speaker from elsewhere would just see an unfamiliar expression and either ask what it means or google it. Most problems are caused by another kind of difference: where a standard US or UK English word is used but with a different meaning. Recently s
Read more

TED’s Magical Red Carpet

Image
Watch any TED(x) video or, better still, attend a live event, and you will probably notice that speakers stand in the middle of a circular red carpet. This choice is not just a question of aesthetics. That red carpet actually plays a key role in the success of the TED format. Having the speaker stand in the middle of a red carpet has several important consequences, leading the speaker to follow best practices that they might not be aware of. No script or notes . Since there is no table, lectern or other furniture within reach, the speaker cannot easily read from a script. This forces them to deliver their talk from memory, which is much more compelling because few people can read from a script and make it sound natural. And no matter how good you are at reading, the audience can see that your eyes are scanning the text and this breaks the magical connection with their minds. Encouraging people to speak from memory pushes them to make a much better talk than they might ot
Read more