Facebook- A Benefit or Distraction?

Social media is here and right now the challenge for many companies is how it can be used to benefit the company. But there are companies willing to ignore the benefits because they don’t want to give their employees access to social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The arguments go something like this “my employees will waste time on these sites”. Let’s look at what the company is really saying with these statements.
Being afraid employees won’t be concentrating on work and will cost you money with the loss of productivity is a fact of life all employers face every day. The truth is this is the same argument that came up years ago when the internet and email were introduced at companies. There are plenty of things to distract employees. In the past managers didn’t want employees hanging around the water cooler and tried to get them back to their desks.

Today the list of potential distractions is endless. They can conduct personal business and use the phone, email and surf the internet on company time. Businesses recognize the benefit these technologies provide far outweighs the risk of employee productivity. Even if they didn’t and took them all away they would still have to deal with employees portable electronics where they can be using cell phones and access the internet and the managers have no control over their use.

What this shows is that this is an ongoing issue between bosses and workers. Employees who are going to waste time will find a way to do it with whatever distraction they can find. Social media isn’t the issue; the issue is the employee and their work ethic toward their job.

Businesses can’t and shouldn’t make marketing decisions based on fear. They need to work with employees and managers to set up a system of accountability. The employee needs to have a reasonable amount of work assigned and it needs to be completed in a designated time frame. If that doesn’t occur then there are consequences that should be in place that the employee knows in advance. Treating employees as adults with clear goals and making them responsible for their day to day work is going to help make your workplace run smoother.

You will never expand your business unless you have a structure in place that can support the growth. Social media should be looked at as a tool to increase awareness of your business and help build your profits.