It’s a common complaint. My employees spend too much time on Facebook. Should we ban facebook and other social networking sites?
When I gave a social networking presentation a few months ago this was a lively debate. Centered around generational differences as well as the amount of time employees are spending on Facebook.
My point is that if employees are on Facebook for hours a day, they are not engaged with their job. And if it wasn’t Facebook, they would be wasting their time doing something else. Give them some credit and find something for them to do that will engage them. Of course that is a two way street, and I won’t be naive and say that this is everyone’s problem. There will always be employees that don’t care and are just in it for the paycheque. And aren’t those the first to go anyway?
I noticed a friend of mine recently started blasting game updates on her facebook status. Knowing the kind of person she is, I knew something was up. Her new job was depressing, and she was not being challenged. She was not engaged, and her boss did not seem to care, or even want to challenge her with something to do. So amongst other things, she played on Facebook to pass her day. She left that company quickly, and I feel sorry for that boss who will never know what she lost.
So is it a Facebook problem or an engagement problem? What do you think?
Jeremy – Bored employees have been finding creative ways to waste time from time immemorial. You are correct, it’s not a FaceBook (or LinkedIn, or Twitter or…) problem. It’s a weak, lazy, lousy manager problem. – Todd
Yep – engagement for sure. You hit the nail on the head. Engaged employees can still hit and even surpass their KPIs while staying connected via facebook, linkedin, etc.
Human multi-tasking.