HR managers 'should consider Facebook breaks'
Following Portsmouth Council's move to ban staff from social networking after they amassed 572 hours on Facebook in one month, a group of experts have suggested that companies should consider introducing Facebook breaks.
The Employment Law Advisory Service has made the recommendation as growing numbers of people are turning to such sites to keep in touch with friends, even at work.
As staff are now essentially 'addicted' to the websites, the company has said they should be given a set time to indulge their habit in much the same way smokers are.
One five minute spell in the morning and another in the afternoon should be enough, the firm stated.
However, under the scheme, anyone who accesses a social networking site outside of the allotted time would have to answer to the HR department and could face disciplinary action.
Giles Ridgeway, a leading consultant at Employment Law Advisory Services, said: "Social media has become an integral part of modern social and professional life. However, they (managers) feel some staff are failing to do the job they're paid for because they're spending too much time on such websites."
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Comments
What about internet breaks? It's not just facebook.
I think the rule-makers are being a little naive with the 5 minute length of these breaks. 5 minutes is barely enough time to write a message with thought!
Yet more evidence that people simply don't get the Internet and the potential for it to benefit business. I mean Facebook is arguably the biggest website in the country after Google so for me it represents an opportunity for organisations to reach out to customers and other stakeholders. Instead its being regarded as some kind of time sucking pariah.
Bruce, if Facebook did not exist, could you share what other web sites you would consider using for informal networking with business ultimately in mind?
Would creating and maintaining a blog in employer time also be an option for building reputation and developing expertise?
Hi David, I guess the two obvious ones are LinkedIn and Twitter but you also have other business networking sites such as Ecademy.
OK, thanks. So, as LinkedIn, for example is clearly professional, maybe a case could be made for a pilot to allow unlimited access to that site, relying on the integrity of employees to play the game sensibly. After all, they deserve trust to be shown and nudged in the appropriate direction.
Beware of Facebook: I just love this!...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7MuwPlOiNQ
You also mentioned, Bruce, that there is also Ecademy.
Yesterday, at an Ecademy meeting, the founder, Penny Power, launched her book "know me, like me, follow me." ISBN 978 07553 1951 0
Are we ready for it? She writes at the end, "You have now read about the philosophies and the tools that will enable you to rise up as an individual and become a contributing person in your own right, to be personally fulfilled, to sing your song and to contribute to the success of others. You have learned that social media is about "collecting and sharing knowledge" and social networks ar about "collecting and sharing people".
This is not written by a management guru, although the team behind it has devoured and given away hundreds of books over the last few years on this general topic in building their own subscription business. But the intention is to help business owners to be emotionally and financially wealthier.
In the 21st century, huge numbers of school leavers versed in social media have generated 100's probably 1,000s of friends whom they have helped or shared something of value and have had fun doing it. They are the employees with an "individual capitalist" mind set . So our organisations had better learn to trust them or get left behind. Public services can ponder their own fate, but I know of many in the ranks of public service who seek better ways of serving despite the top down weight of de-energising control.
The Facebook clip, despite its appalling language, is full of PASSION and its memorable.
Guru Gary Hamel in another clip on this site, talks about PASSION.
The passion is in the informal networks and Portsmouth and its advisors are doing well in nudging everyone along an exciting and, I believe, appropriate path.
A parallel idea is to think of "humanity networks" - phrase coined by Penny, but an intermediate stage is to consider contributiuon, value and valuing (each other) through the open source discipline of value networks and their analysis.. see www.openvaluenetworks.com
Its simple another way of looking at how we work together.
Enjoy.
I mentioned Ecademy as the website exists but I'm not really a fan of the place I'm afraid, nor am I of Thomas and Penny.