Lately I’ve been seeing articles about companies banning social media in the office as well as some companies (mostly overseas) that have banned the Internet all together. My immediate reaction to these stories is that these companies are not the norm and that’s why journalists are writing about them. A study from Robert Half Technology found that 38% of chief information officers surveyed said the growth of social networking sites as a business tool has led them to implement stricter policies on such sites. And companies are getting stricter when it comes to both business and personal use.

I have experienced, second-hand, a local company that has banned social media and is looking into severely restricting Internet access.

The company claims that employee productivity is severely drained by time spent on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. They also claim that time spent on these types of sites is throttling their bandwidth and slowing down the networks for business-related activities.

Is it working? Has employee productivity skyrocketed now that they can’t update their Facebook statuses? According to the IT manager, who had to implement these blockages, the answer is a simple no. Two issues have come up after implementing the “no social media” policy.

Productivity actually plummets when internet access is restricted or banned.

One case in point is an employee who was pulling together a presentation. She needed some graphics and, as she had done dozens of times before, headed to the Internet for some royalty-free images. In the Google search, she found exactly what she needed and clicked on the link. Dead stop. The image was on YouTube and that’s a big no-no.

She talked to the IT manager to find out why she couldn’t get to YouTube. Turns out, the company never actually told their employees they were shutting down this access, they just did it. She thought there was a technical problem. She was then informed that YouTube is considered a “social site” and access is therefore not allowed. After explaining to the IT manager what it was she was trying to do, he went to YouTube, downloaded the image and emailed it to the employee.

How exactly is this productive for anyone? Her time was wasted trying to get to the information she needed and she walked away frustrated. The IT manager’s time is being wasted by first having to explain a policy that was never communicated and then having to download and email the information to the employee.

Employees are using these sites at work anyway.

Do you really think that just by turning off the access on the work machines that your employees don’t have access? Do they have cell phones or netbooks? Guess what? If they have either of these things, they have access to everything you just banned. And they have that access in the office. Now, instead of looking at their company computer screen, they’re looking at their smartphones. They’re still tweeting but now they’re not paying any attention to the company’s email system or instant messages or anything else. Their attention has been completely diverted away from what is happening at work.

The University of Melbourne recently released a study that found that surfing the Internet actually increases concentration levels and contributes to a more productive workforce. According to the study of 300 workers:

70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in internet browsing for leisure. Among the most popular activities are searching for information about products and reading online news sites. Playing online games was the fifth most popular, while watching YouTube movies was seventh.

Instead of turning off access to social media or the Internet all together, I propose the following:

  1. Train your employees to effectively use these channels as a way to increase productivity. Social media and the Internet in general is a great way to get new ideas, brainstorm with people around the world, conduct competitive intelligence or just unwind a bit.
  2. Communicate with your employees about what is considered appropriate – and inappropriate – behavior on the Internet. They probably already understand this, but it’s a good idea to reinforce the concepts of good corporate citizenship.
  3. Educate yourself. Spend some time where your employees are. Are they on Twitter? Engage with them there. Do they have LinkedIn profiles? Why not connect with them there and start building a reputation for yourself and your company.

What is your experience? Does your company allow unfettered access to the Internet and social media? Or, are you circumventing your company systems and using your personal technology to do your job? I would really like to hear from companies that have banned the Internet and/or social media and get their thoughts on how that is going.

Further Reading…