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Should you allow your staff to use social media at work?

The rise of social media and content websites (news, video, trading etc.) have put the entire workplace ecosystem in a fix.

The perennial question for all companies like ours is:

“Should you allow your staff to use social media at work?”

We have had a chequered history with this particular issue. We have blocked the sites, unblocked them, blocked them again and so on. At this moment, none of these sites are blocked for Digicorp employees.

Recently we faced a situation in one of the teams. The manager was complaining that team members are wasting precious time watching videos and surfing Facebook and they switch tabs when he passes by them.

He was right. Some people truly don’t understand the meaning of productivity, working in the zone etc.

So what should be the solution?

First of all don’t make any policy or rule for blocking social media at a workplace. It is a management issue and not a technology issue.

If you feel that your team members are wasting their precious time surfing Facebook, News, Trading websites or playing games, you should discuss it in an open team meeting. This should lessen the intensity in most cases.

If some team members still don’t understand the responsibility, talk to them one to one. Understand their priorities and help them find a solution.

But according to me the worst problem is team members switching tabs when a manager is passing by. It means either they don’t trust the manager OR they are hiding even more things from the manager. This is an alarm. Manager should immediately talk to them and establish the trust.

We are planning to tackle the issue this way, what did you do?