Tweets and Pokes Cost UK Businesses £1.4 Billion Each Year
The results of a new survey by TNS research found that employees use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, cost UK businesses £1.4 billion each year.
They surveyed 1,460 office workers and found that 57% admitted to spending an average of 40 minutes of working time per week on these sites, for personal use. According to TNS, this equates to just under a full working week being spent each year on social networking sites during working hours.
I have worked in offices for many years and it’s my experience that office workers have always taken time out of their working day for ‘personal use’, whether it’s reading the paper, talking on the phone to friends, chatting to colleagues around the coffee machine or taking a cigarette break – why is using social networks any different?
Interestingly, 76% of those surveyed said that their employers hadn’t issued them with specific guidelines with regards to using Twitter. This is leaving employers open to loss of productivity, damage to brand reputation and security risks.
Rather than banning the use of these sites completely, the most sensible solution is to issue usage guidelines in the same way many organisations do for email. There are examples of social media guidelines freely available on the web and here are a few of the better ones.
- Havard Law School Blogs Terms of Use
- GM Motors Blogging Policies
- IOC Olympic Athletes Blogging
- BBC Staff Editorial Guidelines Personal use of Social Networking and other third party websites
- IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines
- Dell’s Online Communication Policy
Posted in: General
