5 Reasons Companies Should Not Block Access to Social Networks

A good, brief article in Advertising Age that argues that “collaboration can increase productivity and resistance is futile.” The five points are:

  1. Resistance is futile
  2. Don’t assume people won’t find other ways to waste time
  3. Social networks can actually make workers more productive
  4. You’ll miss great ideas
  5. Employees are much more trustworthy than companies think

Point five is absolutely critical  — employees can be trusted. And trusting employees leads to higher performance. She adds: “If you can’t trust your employees, you have one of two problems: You are hiring the wrong people or you are not properly training the people you hire.”

Also, I think that point five overcomes point two — if you hire good people, they won’t waste time. Or, perhaps better, they will only waste time when doing so will lead to greater productivity overall.

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March 18, 2010 | Filed Under Management | 1 Comment 

Comments

One Response to “5 Reasons Companies Should Not Block Access to Social Networks”

  1. Ritch on September 28th, 2010 10:34 pm

    Interesting thoughts but I’m not convinced.
    1. Resistance is Futile: No, it isn’t. At least, not on the computer; it can be blocked.
    2. Just because people can find other ways to wasted time doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to reduce time wasters. Otherwise, with the same rationale, you’d install TVs in every cube and office, “If they don’t waste time watching TV they’ll waste time in other ways.”
    3. How can social networks make workers more productive? That seems counter-intuitive unless you are in marketing, perhaps.
    4. You’ll miss great ideas? The payoff for time wasting vs great ideas seems to not be worth it. Read a good book to get great ideas.
    5. Just because workers are trustworthy doesn’t suggest it is wise to allow such tempting distractions.

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