No social media, no job says “generation standby”

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

You’re young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Fresh out of college you’re about to embark into the world of work. Following a successful interview, you’ve been offered a position with a company you could see yourself part of for some time to come.

Fair wage? Tick. Personable staff? Tick. A challenging work load? Tick. Access to Facebook? Denied.

Is this enough to make you reconsider taking the job?

For 20 percent of Millennials, or Generation Y-ers (those born from 1980 onwards) a ban on social media in the workplace is often a deal breaker.

My initial thought was that this is preposterous. But when you consider that 48 percent of office workers and 71 percent of managers undertake work-related tasks from home, with 57 percent using a home laptop and 37 percent using smart phones to keep them constantly updated on what’s happening in the office, suddenly a little social networking during office hours sounds like a fair compromise.

Hillary Blackwell, global HR director at Clearswift, the security software provider that carried out the research, said: “Call it multi-tasking or life-splicing but increasingly fuelled by advances in technology, employees are blurring the boundaries between home and work.”

And as social media is ubiquitous in society today, for a company to ban these tools does so at the risk of appearing draconian.

But social media doesn’t have to mean teens gossiping about whose Twilight team they’re on – Jake or Edward? When removing the hype, these tools can actually be useful to an organization. From internal microblogging tools such as Yammer and CEO blogs, to work-related discussions and communities on Linked In, social networking doesn’t always have to mean social not-working.

It’s is a great way to look inwardly into your company and find out how employees really feel, what they’re thinking and what they’re saying. As part of a communications mix, it can assist in achieving strategic communication objectives such as creating transparency in the workplace, including employees in future decisions, finding out who’s working on what, linking remote and disparate global employees, creating engagement, spreading corporate news. The list is endless.

Whether you’re wondering how social media can benefit you’re business, convincing senior executives of a buy-in or wondering how other organizations have used the tools, you might want to check out Melcrum’s new Social Media report which will be on sale soon.

How is your organization using social media? We’re always keen to hear so let us know.Email me at nishwa.ashraf@melcrum.com

Comments

[kellybriefworld]

I’m a consultant working with Palo Alto Networks; they have an excellent whitepaper on the subject of blocking social networking apps that you may have to worry about, “To Block or Not. Is that the question?” here: http://bit.ly/d2NZRp. It has lots of insightful and useful information about identifying and controlling Enterprise 2.0 apps (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc). Enjoy!

[Nil]

Thanks for sharing this information, i truly love your weblog. Keep this good work & enlighten us with your new post. Thanks.

[Josip Petrusa]

Great article Nishwa! As social media becomes commonplace and a "natural" aspect of life, it is literally only a matter of time before use of social media truly becomes accepted. As Gen-Yers move into the workforce, their dominate demographic numbers will ensure use of social media at work. This won't necessarily only be for personal reasons but also the fact (as you mentioned) that social media does have many positive and powerful aspects for its use.

[Vijay]

It really depends on the particular social medium, doesn't it? Most companies will have much less of a problem in making say, a LinkedIn accessible compared to a Facebook or a Twitter -- the former is so much more oriented towards business than the latter two.