Neville Hobson points to reports from the Daily Telegraph indicating that:
[...] More than two thirds of employers are banning or restricting the use of Facebook and similar sites over fears that staff are wasting time on them when they should be working, a survey found. Several companies have also warned employees that accessing the site during office hours is a sackable offence.
More than 70 per cent of businesses, including banks and law firms, have barred the sites. City firms are taking the lead, with Credit Suisse and Dresdner Kleinwort both banning employees from accessing them. But "Faceblocking" is spreading.
I'm sure the irony of this won't be lost on JP Rangaswami. Until recently, JP was CTO at DrKW and remains a firm advocate of social computing tools like Facebook. In a recent post JP has a hunch, suggesting that at least some of the bans have happened by accident but:
The trouble with decisions like this is that the larger the company, the harder it is to overturn default decisions.
You'd be surprised how often stuff like this happens.
I'm not so sure. This is reminiscent of so many past 'bans' like use of phones for personal calls, email and as Neville points out - most recently blogging. Which begs the question. Is management so badly trained that it behaves like Pavlov's dog every time something 'new' comes along to threaten the command and control hierarchies of which so many are enamoured? If so then change in the way management is trained is sorely needed.
Social networks and Facebook in particular are with us. Get over it, move on and take advantage of what it offers.
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