Employee Productivity
At the crossroads of professional teams and social media is the concern that employees will “waste” time using these tools and that their productivity and work contributions will suffer as a result. Mashable recently reported a survey wherein 54% of companies completely block external social media sites.
One study in particular, conducted by the University of Melbourne, says that employees are actually more productive when allowed to use the internet for their leisure. And many employees today, born and raised in a digital world, are incredibly more adept at leveraging technology to do their jobs more efficiently and better while accomplishing multiple tasks at the same time. Their expectations for companies, moreso now than ever, is that their technological access and experience at work will mirror what they have at home.
If employees are interested in social networks, they’re going to find ways to use them on company time, most likely through their mobile devices. Internal social networks can have the advantage of providing a gated environment in which employees can connect and converse that still has professional purposes and usefulness in a work environment.
What employees are craving that compels them to use social media in the first place, either personally or professionally: access to information, a voice in a larger conversation, and connections with people that they relate to. All of those things can work in a business environment, and even help team members do their jobs better.
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