IS IT POSSIBLE TO BAN SOCIAL MEDIA AT WORK?

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Last week I asked the question whether it is a good idea to ban social media sites at work.  Companies certainly couldn’t operate without telephones and in the future, companies won’t be able to operate without social media.  Employees can waste time on social media just like they can waste time on the phone.

Now I’m going ask the same question, but in a different way.  Not whether it’s a good idea to ban social media at work, but whether it’s even possible to ban social media at work.

Much of social media is created by cell phones and not just by computers.  I think you would agree that most employees have cell phones.  Therefore any employee who wants to get to Facebook or Twitter doesn’t have to have the company computer to do so.

So this actually becomes a matter of company policy and supervision. 

In addition, it is human nature to want to do the things you aren’t allowed to do.  This is true of the phone as it would be with social media.  Even though you might not supply a company phone to an employee, if he wants to make a call, he can always pull out his cell phone and do so.

This is summed up by a post we received on our WeMentor Facebook business page.  When asked the question, “Does your employer ban social media sites at work?”  The response was “Yes they do and I have been trying to inform and enlighten them on how much of a negative effect this has on the morale of the employees, the potential business they are losing and how if they don’t get started now they will be light years behind other businesses.  Right now I’m on my cell which is a lot less efficient than if I had just logged on, made a quick post and back to work.  If I had it already minimized on my desktop, this message would have only taken two minutes instead of five.”

This is David Sher, your WeMentor Guy, saying it’s now what you know, but Whoo you know.