The benefits of using Facebook at work

Do your staff spend a lot of time and waste a lot of the organisation's time participating in "social networking" (Facebook, LindedIn etc) during office hours?

Are you worried? You are not alone. It is tempting to act swiftly to stop this seemingly wasteful activity but before you act to limit or ban the use of social networking sites, you should consider the wider perspective.

A recent article in a UK publication (2nd Sep 2009) showed that the Portsmouth City Council staff logging into Facebook 270,000 times a month and on average spent 413 hours a month on the site. As a result, management banned access to social netowrking websites. The author of the article, Theo Paphitis is adamant that social networking is detrimental to business and he has limited access to such sites at his company, Ryman, a UK stationary business.

On first glance, it is easy to agree with Theo. Council staff spending the rate payers' money at the rate of 413 hours per month on what would seems to be non business use of Facebook is a gross waste of the constituents' hard earned cash!

However, look at the numbers. If you divide the 413 hours by the number of log-ins, it is an average of 5.5 seconds per log in. A report on the Portsmouth site shows that in 2006, 4460 Employee Opinion surveys were sent out of which 1402 (31%) responded. [Reference ] so one presumes there are approximately 4460 employees.

If the numbers provided are correct, then the employees spent an average of approximately 5½ minutes (413 hours divided by 4460 employees) looking at Facebook per month or less than 1½ minutes a week.

What this analysis shows is that the perception of 'wasting the rate-payers' money' is not in line with the facts. Yes employees spend company time and resources looking at Facebook and other "social" sites but at the rate of 1½ minutes a week per employee, it could hardly be called a significant problem. Taking another perspective, are the results of this time spent on Facebook and such sties all negative or is there positive gain to the organisation for their 1½ minutes a week per employee?

Taking another perspective, are the results of this time spent on Facebook and such sties all negative or is there positive gain to the organisation for their 1½ minutes a week per employee?

Upon deeper consideration, there are real benefits for organisations that enable their people to access social networking sites.  These include:

Management discipline

The duty of management is to ensure that there is an effective balance for their

Enhanced computer skills

Social networking sites demand a certain level of computer and internet literacy. Ongoing use of these sites expands a person's view of what they can achieve with a computer, how the web can be used and enables the organisation to introduce them to more advanced applications because they are conversant with adopting new web methods. These sites are continually innovating and leading the users to understand the new innovations. Such leaning can be adopted in the company environment as a major competitive advantage against other organisations that have staff who are kept isolated from such technologies and hence are averse to innovative information technology adoption.

Access to rapidly growing and up to date data bases

Social databases are expanding at a rapid rate, with the majority of the data being self managed and hence current. Leading organisations embrace this fact and enable their people to leverage these databases for business advantage. For example, sales staff can look up customers on a social site and gain a view of them as people prior to contacting or visiting them, leading to a superior ability to provide meaningful offerings and value add relationships to them as customers. Another use is keeping in touch with individuals that are advocates of the company but that have moved on from the client compay to join another organisation. If is often difficult to keep in touch with them or to find them once they move. If there is a link with the customer contact person as an individual via a social network contact is maintained and the relationship can be potentially developed with their new employer.

Social reinforcement

Organisations that view their people as core to their success put a lot of effort into supporting social activities for their staff. Irrespective of the company's stance on availability of social sites, many of their personnel will connect with each other on these sites out of working hours. Providing access to social networking sites and using them to disseminate information about work related social events reinforces the organisation's support of the social aspects of the company which demonstrates that the company sees them as valuable, not a production

The question should not be "Should we remove access to social networking?" but rather, "How do we enable our people to access social networking so that they and the organisation gain mutual benefit?"

With the right management perspective and skills, access to social networking provides far greater benefits than liabilities. Don't ban Facebook and social networking; instead, focus on management skill and how to use the technologies in innovative, value creating ways.

Philip Belcher, CEO, LSE Consulting Pty Ltd

LSE Consulting is a Strategic Management Consulting firm based in Sydney Australia