What looks like goofing off, such as Twitter, may actually be knowledge work.
And, so? How is this different from all the other ways we have of relaxing and taking a break? In business people are expected to be available nearly all the time, so we also need to give them a break if they need it, whether that is heading down the road for a coffee or checking their favorite blog. And by the way, many of those blogs have a business connection.
Goofing off isn’t always bad.
Is this really a problem. The company is made up of real people. The human side of a business is very important.
Employees who will goof off (or abuse SM) are already goofing off & u don’t know it. It’s already a selection issue. Now u’ll have eyes into it & can take appropriate documented action.
Don’t employees goof off now? What about sick days, extended loo breaks etc? What might be seen as goofing off could also be work – research, networking, product evaluation to name but a few
If by ‘goof off’ you mean “a person who is habitually lazy or does less than their fair share of work” then I don’t see how this is possible when they are busy using social media for well-intentioned purposes
You’re right. Staff WILL goof off. But here’s something great about social media that I don’t think you’ve realized. Did you know with social media you can actually monitor goofing off even BETTER? I can’t tell if you played solitaire on your laptop unless I actually catch you doing it. But I CAN tell if you uploaded your vacation photos or played Farmville on Facebook during work hours. I don’t know if you spent an hour on the phone to your sister. But I CAN see if you were tweeting about lunch and your favorite episode of Glee when you were supposed to be working on that report. See? Social media is actually your greatest dream–documented proof of all the ways your staff is screwing around! The faster you get them on there, the quicker you’ll be able to prove what you’ve suspected all along!
If your employees goof off it’s your fault as a manager; either give them something more interesting to do, motivate them, accept an element of goofing as part of life or find people who don’t goof off.
If employees have to goof off they will, whether they have access to social media at work or not. If you are managing your work allocation and performance management well, and have the right business measurements in place, it doesn’t really matter whether employees goof off or not. If you are measuring the time they are spending on activities rather than the results they are expected to achieve, you are probably a lawyer or a consultant billing by the hour. I can’t comment on lawyers but as a consultant, you better focus on results or you’ll be out of business.
This is redundant with the previous one. They’ll still have phones, email, paper, etc, e.g. lots of ways to goof off. They’ll goof off regardless if you haven’t given them meaning in the work, but social media won’t affect it, yay or nay.
Of course! We have been doing that for centuries and we will continue to do that for many more to come! It’s part of our human nature when we lack the motivation and involvement to remain engaged with what we do. When businesses have managed to wear off our passion for our jobs and instead treat us as resources, not even human, that’s what you can expect. It’s a fair game.Like I said, we are going to continue to goof off for many decades to come, but, to be honest with you, if we would want to do that we wouldn’t need to make use of social networking sites in the first place. We have got other means of doing it much more successfully: email, personal phone calls, the water cooler breaks, extended breakfast & lunch breaks, late arrivals at work, and a long etc. etc.If you don’t want your employees to goof off, treat them with respect, trust them, empower them to co-share that responsibility of running a business, treasure and nurture their professionalism, because, after all, haven’t you hired a bunch of professionals to do the job in the first place? If not, don’t blame the employees; you may need to look into the HR hiring process altogether from scratch
Employees already goof off, we’ve never needed social media for that (wall and what ever the comparable windows command was – anyone?)Plus now most people can now access social media on their phones. Why not set expectations for how you want your employees to use social sites, and let them connect?
I remember in the 1990s when companies were wondering whether or not they should allow employees to have web access. Is work even imaginable today without it? But the worries were the same.
If employees have enough time to goof off, then maybe the culprit is mandatory work hours. Try instituting a Results-Only-Work-Environment, where people don’t have to work a set number of hours at all – they just have to deliver what is needed from them. Like a free market for goods, if people are free to invest how they spend their time, many will become intensely focused and productive at work, in order to carve out extra time in their week for non-work tasks. If people are goofing off at work, it may be because they are stuck there for 40 hours whether they are super-productive or not.
- See more at: http://c4lpt.co.uk/social-learning-handbook/10-reasons-not-to-ban-social-media-in-organisations/#sthash.gyHL5mRX.dpuf