The employee-facebook saga rumbles on

Neville Hobson comments on the Australian "business and facebook" story, as does Shel Holtz, it's also on the TV news and they're even talking about on Merrick and Rosso...

What's amusing is that on the radio (Merrick and Rosso is Australia's equivalent to Chris Moyles' show in the UK), they're having phone-ins and people are saying "Yep, I love Facebook - we still do e-mail and text messages but you can do so much more on Facebook such as create groups for events, get a list of people coming, RSVP and everyone can see if you're going..."

Then there was the delivery driver who said he gets up half an hour early just to check Facebook and then goes to work.

Following this sleep deprived fellow was a girl who said, "They've banned it at our work because we were literally spending hours and hours on it instead of working..."

Try as I might I don't think you can argue with the manager who pulled the plug on that last one.

Comments

[Shel Holtz]

I can take issue with the last one, Alex. Why in the world can't supervisors be trained to identify abuse and manage the people who do waste time rather than penalize everybody, including those employees who would use it reasonably and perhaps even for work? There were employees who wasted plenty of time before there were social networks and even before there was an Internet. You can waste time with crossword puzzles or at the water cooler. And I have no issue with companies address the problem. But it's something for supervisors to deal with by exception. To tell everyone in the company, "We simply don't trust any of you," will kill any hopes of developing an engaged workforce.

[Alex Manchester]

But the thing with that radio show example, Shel, is that a great numbers of employees were wasting hours on the site and they knew it. It wasn't exceptions, it was the majority.

[Shel Holtz, ABC]

So said the low-level employee who was wasting time who clearly knows what every other employee in the company is doing. Or did the IT department verify it with statistics from the server? In any case, the company should have...

1) Reiterated the policy
2) Discliplined the worst offenders
3) Communicated clearly that the worst offenders had been disciplined (even sacked)
4) Reminded employees that log files keep track of employees' online activities

The idea is to change the culture regarding acceptable behavior in the organization by treating people like adults. It's a funny thing: Treat them like adults and they behave that way. Treat them like children...

[Alex Manchester]

Shel, as much as I agree the process above is the right thing to do, the ideal scenario if you will, I think you’re painting a very rosy, positive picture about life and employee and management attitudes in a lot of work places. I appreciate where you stand and the wider, long-term effort for engendering culture change in the organizations you work with, but you’re at the forefront. Most are a long, long way behind you.

Let’s take this point about a “low-level” employee. Say a hundred low level employees were in a hypothetical call centre, where time away from the desk is monitored – even bathroom time and coffee breaks - and where the internet is quite restricted anyway.
This is a place where people punch in the minute their shift starts, take their one-hour lunch, and punch out the minute their shift ends. It’s not a great job but it’s a job. No amount of "engagement" or "culture" talk is going to change that fact.

Then, suddenly, Facebook fever sweeps the floor and lots of employees are spending lots of time on it.

There are thousands of offices where life is like that and where Facebook has suddenly risen to become a problem.

To lots of companies with offices like this, the same ones who ban Youtube, eBay, Hotmail etc. this process of monitoring and keeping check on something like a site “where people can check in with their friends all day” simply isn’t on the cards.

Facebook is quickly seen as another non-work, public internet page that employees can potentially waste time on. They’ve already banned the other sites and people deal with it so why not check off the Facebook site too? Simple to do, low-cost and saves all the aggro (in the short term anyway, until the next thing comes along or they start worrying about employee churn…):

"Forget the trust issue, don’t beat about with research and monitoring and the time that takes for something that possibly has fringe benefits for businesses," (and I’d put a bet with the vast majority of Facebook’s 30 million+ users, the focus is not work stuff). Let’s just circumnavigate the whole problem and ban it quickly.”

I’m not saying it’s the right call, but as we’ve seen with all the reports, it’s the one most companies are making. It’s going to take a while for those companies to stop thinking like this, if they ever do. And it wouldn’t be the first time a minority of abusers in a sea of users have ruined it for everyone.

Incidentally, following all the coverage this story has got in the general media this week, more than a few friends have said they’re “on Facebook a lot less at work now.”

And lastly, I appreciate the satire, but how well that argument would work in a typical business is up for discussion.