Facebook a waste of time?
An internet filtering company scored a PR coup in Australia recently when it released survey results claiming that Facebook cost business $5 billion a year in lost productivity.
Putting aside the vested interest of the source, which sells a web and email blocking system, the data had managers scrambling to introduce restrictive policies.
Our company’s response was a sensible one. Employees were notified their web and email use was being logged; excessive private use of the internet in company time was not acceptable; and suspicious web behavior would be reported to department managers.
I received the first of those reports today, showing the web usage of two employees (the others were all clear). One appears to be addicted to Facebook and the other to MySpace.
Without even speaking to them, I’m satisfied there has been no abuse of work time. The employees in question are both highly productive, meet all their deadlines and voluntarily contribute extra time.
Like many such things, a flexible response is better than a rigid one.
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