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13 June 2008

Ban Facebook and you'll lose employees

39% would consider quitting work if social networking was given the chop.

Many people would consider quitting their job if they weren't allowed to look at certain websites, a new survey has found.

Network solutions provider Telindus found that 39% of people aged between 18 and 24 would think about walking out if such a situation arose in their place of work.

Restrict, rather than ban outright
Of the 1,000 office workers surveyed, 80% log onto social networking sites, while more than half download music and watch videos during office hours.

Despite this, nearly 75% of users get annoyed when their network slows down, even though the use of bandwidth-heavy personal websites could be causing those problems.

Nearly half of office workers believe it would be better to restrict personal internet usage to lunch or out of work hours, rather than ban access completely.

With some organizations cracking down on the use of sites such as Facebook and YouTube, either banning them altogether or restricting their use to certain times, Telindus' managing director, Mark Hutchinson, believes businesses need to be more flexible.

Provide a trusting environment
Telling Sky News Online, Hutchinson says: "The key to appreciating the younger generation is to understand that they communicate in a totally different way. To have a phone on your desk is alien, they use YouTube and Facebook on a daily basis."

"If you restrict things, it will drive things underground," Hutchinson added, "In a happy and trusting environment, they will do their job."

Key findings include:

• Nearly 40% of those surveyed said they'd use a separate PC at work dedicated to personal use, while 13% said they wouldn't use it.
• 1 in 7 would buy a machine to use at home if there was an office ban of social networking sites.
• Older generations are less bothered about social networking websites, with just 16% of 25 to 65+ year olds saying they'd consider leaving the company and only 13% saying that they'd be annoyed if their access was restricted.

Comments received by Sky News Online about the research findings include:
• "It's demeaning not being trusted to browse the internet and the lack of anything to do between calls [in our call center] lowers morale, which means lower job satisfaction and customer service as well."
• "Give people a inch and they take a yard."

Web addicts clog up business
"Considering that one in 5 of office workers admit to downloading TV programs at work, the pressure of personal internet usage on the corporate network is phenomenal compared to what it was 5 years ago,” Hutchinson warns.

Have your say
What's your organization's Facebook policy? Are you able to network in this way or has it been banned? Has it been banned because of bandwidth issues, or because of lack of trust from management to allow employees to manage their own workloads?

Discuss this issue with your communication peers by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.

Other recommendations:
The Facebook Friday revolution

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