Exactly the sort of submission one would expect from the Daily Mail…

What Theo Paphitis seems to forget is that workers are more productive if they are allowed to leisure browse at work (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/enterprise/250689/staff-work-harder-after-stint-on-social-networks).

I work in an I.T. department and part of my job is to do with web access and providing reports for managers etc.
We recently moved to be more open on web access and leave it in the hands of managers to monitor and within 2 days people were ringing us to say that facebook was being used in our company and they wanted it banning.
From our point of view we had a different argument….
Their issue was they were using facebook however it didn’t seem to be a problem that they could access BBC all day long or trusted reviews or pcprop for example!
It was just because it was Facebook.
It seems to be so frowned upon yet I could happily fritter away all of my working day reading about football or computers.

@Dave
“Their issue was they were using facebook however it didn’t seem to be a problem that they could access BBC all day long or trusted reviews or pcprop for example! It was just because it was Facebook.”

And they are right. You can’t get anything from facebook. Spending time on facebook is simply and purely a waste of time. Unlike reading useful articles on pcpro or bbc, which broadens your horizons. If you want to socialize then meet with your mates live in a pub or somewhere, don’t waste your life in cyberspace…

The problem a couple of commentors seem to have missed isn’t that Facebook should be banned, but that, given the freedom, some employees abuse the situation.

If the employees check it on their breaks etc. then there really isn’t a problem. If they spend 4 hours a day looking at Facebook, instead of doing their job, THAT is a problem.

It is dick heads who don’t think and abuse the privileges the employer gives them, that ruins it for the whole.

Used properly, they can be a useful business tool. Abused, it just costs the company unnecessary money.

The same goes for mobiles. Used properly, they are great – that is why they have voicemail. If you are on the shop floor or in a meeting, you shouldn’t be looking at your ‘phone. If you are in a shop, leave it in your locker and check it on breaks…

Where I work, I think probably 2 workers have heard of the internet, let alone Facebook, so we don’t really have a problem. At my previous employer, nearly everybody spent their time browsing the net, it was incredible how much work didn’t get done!

Facebook here created some problems amongst the “younger” staff members, so it was globally banned. Some o our colleagues labour under a draconian scheme, the other half won’t stand for it. It is ridiculous being blocked if you’re trying to research proxy security methods.

There is, always a degree of discretion necessary to properly manage staff. For example, I’m using this post to check an upload logger!

It’s weid how responses seem to slip straight into the “ban” vocabulary, when it’s not the only option. There’s nothing wrong with analysis of traffic passing through a company connection – it would certainly spot the real offenders more quickly than tattle-tales or rumour. One firm thought they had a porn problem and asked me to put in some logging: turned out the largest bandwidth consumption per week was one very active participant – in catholic.net !

I’m glad that Paphitis has figured out the vapid nature of Facebook and the like: he’s not arguing for banning of surfing, he’s arguing for a utility-based approach. and he’s certainly right that the “distractionist” information brokers like Facebook are not making an even-handed value proposition.

This is a tricky one. I manage a department in an organisation where social networking sites were banned, but are now not – not because we want to let staff use them per se, but because we have a desire to use the medium in communication with our “clients”. However, we can do one and not the other. Our IT policy allows people to use the ‘net during their beaks. The reality is people do use it at other times. I’m OK with that providing it’s not affecting our ability to get the job done – not just at an individual level, but at a team and departmental level. I also don’t want to be in a situation where as a middle manager I’m accused of obviously having too many staff because they spend time on the ‘net doing personal stuff. It’s the perceptions that need to be challenged.

I look after our web filtering (well, the network generally, actually), and we have a ban on Facebook. I would rather adopt a more rational approach with usage allowed during lunchbreaks etc., but we’re stuck with a TRULY crappy webfilter that doesn’t allow time filtering or sliding windows for personal use. I had the funding approved for an upgrade to something decent, but then the banks lost everyones’ money… I would rather enable usage by setting sensible policies in place than ban it, but unfortunately I can’t at the moment.

I think that the ebst way to deal with this is to have time-based limits, either by allowing acces between say 12 and 2, or allowing say 15 minutes browsing of particular classification of sites per day. That way, users aren’t left feelign bereft of access, but HR can be assured that staff are allocating appropriate amounts of time to work/leisure. It’s not even an IT function to decide, it should be set in policy by HR and only implemented by IT.

I have massive respect for Theo. As a small business owner, I listen when he has something to say. I see where is coming from, but we also use the likes of Twitter for promoting the business so it isn’t all bad. I think a reasonable use policy is best, let staff check their accounts at lunch will give them motivation and ensure they knuckle down the rest of the time.