Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Monday 21 January 2008, 11:44 AM
Social networking: IT vs HR
The poll was conducted "amongst 776 office workers, who admitted to spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites whilst at work", according to their press release. "The end result is potentially billions of pounds in lost productivity, maintain GSS, plus the extra demand on bandwidth which is an additional cost to a business in terms of efficiency, maintenance and resources."
That bandwidth cost? As much as 30pc, according to some CIOs.
But here's the interesting thing: according to Infosec event organiser Claire Sellick, "it would appear that most CISO and IT Directors loathe social networking sites and if they had their way would ban them completely, but what is also coming across loud and clear is that the HR departments actually welcome the use of these sites – so there is a lot of internal pushing and shoving going on between HR and IT over how best to manage these sites."
I recall recently sitting next to a tech (OK, tech PR) recruiter at an awards dinner, and this chap was telling me that any applicant he screens is going to be at a disadvantage if they're not on certain social networking sites. Recruiters and HR love the things. Like stalkers, it gives them an opportunity to learn a lot about a person without having to actually speak to them (yet another reason to be careful what you put up there).
And, of course, then there's the yoof. Over to GSS MD David Hobson: "Social networking sites are now integral to the way that many of the latest and youngest recruits into the workforce communicate and work, so for some sectors social networking sites may have a part to play in terms of competitive advantage or used for research or as a marketing tool. It comes down to a fine balancing act – and mostly a case of introducing a 'reasonable use' policy."
Security concerns aside - I'm not ignoring them, it's just that they're obvious - I really wonder how many of these lost-productivity stories take into account the value that social networks can bring to a business. How many deals are kicked off through some event that one party only finds out about through a contact's mini-feed? I notice that these stories only ever talk about MySpace, Facebook and Bebo - what about, say, LinkedIn? Just because it's for suits doesn't make it any less of a social network, and a huge chunk of its user base is surely also merrily tapping away on Facebook.
If social networking is stretching your bandwidth usage, deal with it. Better yet, start lobbying the telco industry to up the bandwidth and cut prices. Like it or not, this is the new world (sorry, "paradigm") - like anything, it comes with good and bad. Sticking your fingers in your ears is not sustainable.
PreviousComments on this post
Its hard to believe the figure is that high (£6.5B) considering that social networks (in the UK) have only taken off in the last 2 years.
The real problem here isn't social networks, rather its boredom from a lack of engaging work and mandane tasks assigned to people.
An 8hr working day is only interupted by a 1hr break, usually at 12 or 1pm, its hard for most people to keep concentration for 3hrs, so, they always give themselves these 5-10minute breaks.
There's not much businesses can do about this because if not social networks, it will be gossip websites, newspapers, soduku or anything else to get rid of the boredom. As you've mentioned, atleast social networks can have a productive side to them!
Interesting to note that it's 776 office workers, who admitted to spending [at least] 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites! This minimum 30mins could be interpreted as just the tip of an iceberg. The real amount of time could be as high as an hour and therefore equate to several hours of unproductive or downtime per employee per week. I read recently that MS is proposing a suite of tools that will make it possible for management to track exactly what an employee does on their computer every day. While project management software the likes of Hydra enable the tracking and allocating of 'human resources' to particular tasks - the end game is probably to curb the use of computer socialising within the context of work environments to a greater degree. Some public companies may argue that employees are in fact the property of shareholders who would prefer such work related time to be focused on addressing matters that make the company profitable. No sign yet of social networking being a resourceful and productive (read: benefit to the bottom line) use of time to any company other than of financial benefit to those who own and operate the social networking sites themselves. One would have to consider what real impact social networking is having on the planet when most of what people use them for is to write about themselves, report on their activities and generally 'chat' with friends. Other than that, social networking is potentially the most powerful means to disseminate information on important global issues that concern each and every one of us; provide a forum for new ideas and initiatives and eventually even change the very way in which Geo-strategic decisions are made.
TFD
