I’ve talked about this issue ad nau­seum in the past but it’s reared its head again in this arti­cle in the News Lim­ited press (Brisbane’s Courier Mail, to be accu­rate). So, what am I talk­ing about?

Busi­nesses block­ing access to social tools in the work­place. In this case, Face­book gets a men­tion, but it applies to social net­works generally.

I’m firmly of the view that this is a fool­ish approach by busi­ness. For sev­eral reasons:

  • it assumes staff are going to abuse the priv­i­lege of Inter­net access at work rather than treat­ing them like adults
  • it dis­con­nects peo­ple from the very thing that makes them peo­ple — their net­works of other people
  • it denies peo­ple the oppor­tu­nity to reach out to peers, clients and cus­tomers in the places they might be which very well could be Face­book, or MySpace or LinkedIn or a Ning com­mu­nity, etc.
  • it abro­gates respon­si­bil­ity for man­ag­ing staff and imposes kindergarten-​​level, eas­ily bypassed rules
  • it fails to recog­nise that a smart and work­able Accept­able Use Pol­icy for social net­works might work bet­ter than just block­ing or banning
  • it’s demor­al­is­ing, demo­ti­vat­ing and belit­tles the matu­rity inher­ent in your peo­ple when you treat them well and trust them

There’s more than enough research in exis­tence (just two there from McK­in­sey, but there are many more) to indi­cate that allow­ing access to social net­works at work, cou­pled with a func­tional and well-​​considered pol­icy on what is and isn’t okay makes for a more engaged, more moti­vated and poten­tially more inno­v­a­tive work force.

The exam­ple I use fre­quently when asked this ques­tion is Face­book related. I’d sug­gest that it’s very okay to use Face­book to stay in con­tact with indus­try peer groups at work, but demon­stra­bly not okay to use Face­book to play zom­bie games or Scrab­ble at work.

Which would your employer pre­fer? A happy worker, con­nected tightly into indus­try best prac­tice and able to reach out for help when needed, or the prover­bial mush­room — in the dark and fed on the crap that iso­la­tion pro­duces? I know which I’d pre­fer if you were my employee.

Not to men­tion, this block­ing argu­ment has been seen before. First it was tele­phones on desks, then long-​​distance calls, then PCs, then email, then IM, etc., etc. The issue is no dif­fer­ent with social net­works.

Social net­works are just another tool that have incred­i­ble poten­tial to help your busi­ness if used in the right way. As such, here are the four things I’d sug­gest you and your busi­ness do today to make sure your staff are empow­ered to use social tools at work but also under­stand with crys­tal clar­ity what is and isn’t acceptable:

  • Start with an accept­able use pol­icy — get everyone’s feed­back into it, get it drafted and in place on your intranet so every­one can read it. Make sure that your staff know their acces can be mon­i­tored and that there are con­se­quences for repeated abuse of the pol­icy (which may range from a warn­ing to dis­missal, depend­ing on the abuse).
  • Have an inter­nal social net­work — of some sort. Ensure peo­ple can con­nect to each other within your organ­i­sa­tion so that they build famil­iar­ity and exper­tise with the way social tools work.
  • Open the fire­wall — block­ing is both unnec­ces­sary and a work­place form of the Nanny State. If you trust your peo­ple, lead­ing and man­ag­ing them well, they will be more likely to trust you in return and also be more likely to feel inclined to fol­low the poli­cies you introduce.
  • Encour­age use — not only allow it, but actively encour­age your peo­ple to con­nect online (as well as more tra­di­tional ways) with each other, their peers and your clients and cus­tomers. Open­ing these chan­nels offers fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­nity to increase inputs to the think­ing done in your busi­ness, offer­ing an atten­dant poten­tial for increased innovation

There are no per­fect answers to this issue, but I think this offers a decent start.