|
Simon Norris of Temperus looks at the best ways to maintain productivity while allowing staff freedom to surf the internet. With office workers across the country spending increasing amounts of time on social networking sites, there is a growing concern among employers about staff productivity.
Some organisations are already responding to the issue, adopting a range of different approaches. In a recent survey of HR managers, two thirds said their companies blocked access to social networking sites.
Yet many of the solutions on offer can be problematic. A Nottinghamshire hospital is one of the many organisations that have chosen to ban employees from accessing Facebook at work but created a reputation-damaging backlash from staff, who even created a webpage to voice their protests. Taking a tough stance is not as straightforward as it might appear, and HR managers need to tread carefully.
We all have to accept that social networking sites, blogs and instant messaging are here to stay. So which solutions are available, and what are the pros and cons of each?
Outright Banning
For the vast majority of organisations an outright ban on Web use is simply not realistic. Despite the deluge of headlines about the Internet damaging productivity, it’s important to remember that it’s also an essential business tool, so removing access can be hugely counterproductive.
Selective Restrictions
The Nottingham option – and an increasingly popular choice with senior management – is to use technology to block access to selected sites. But this can be fraught with problems.
Employers commonly have no way of measuring the effectiveness of the restrictions. This is important, because it is often possible for staff to find their way around restrictions by using ‘proxy sites’, which replicate the content of popular sites, like MySpace and YouTube, under a different domain name, bypassing restrictions placed within the company’s network.
Blocking can also prove to be highly inconvenient to staff, who might need to make frequent requests to unblock sites that are ’blacklisted’, and doesn’t take into account that some sites have business and non-business applications.
Also, as the Nottinghamshire hospital trust discovered, blocking can make you deeply and publicly unpopular with your staff.
Activity Monitoring
If it is done covertly, monitoring the PC-based activities of a workforce can risk alienating staff and creating an unhealthy atmosphere of distrust in the office. Secret monitoring can also have serious implications in relation to the Data Protection Act, the Human Rights Act and the Code of Practice, to name but a few.
Open and transparent monitoring, however, can offer employers a flexible and manageable approach – provided it is done thoughtfully and sympathetically, with the interests of both employer and employee in mind.
By measuring the amount of time staff spend using different websites or applications and feeding this information back to employees in a clear and straightforward manner, a self-regulating culture can be created in which staff can adapt their own working practices to ensure that their employer’s policies are adhered to, and means staff are free to plan their own time in a responsible manner.
Many staff – and employers – shudder at the prospect of having their working patterns logged and recorded. However, there is increasing recognition that employers need to make sure the trust placed in their staff is not abused.
Faced with the alternative solution of site blocking, most will recognise that monitoring provides a more flexible, trusting and employee-friendly solution. Employers can ensure policies are adhered to and benefit from the wealth of information provided to help guarantee that their organisations are managed as effectively as possible.
| 
