14 DAY TRIAL // Social media may be an increasing part of our lives but it has no place at work. At least that's what the majority of large companies in the US think, according to a new survey commissioned by consulting firm Robert Half Technology. The survey found that 54 percent of companies completely block access to social networking sites and most of the ones that don't have plenty of restrictions put in place.
“Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, said. “For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, which may be why about one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes.”
The researchers surveyed over 1,400 chief technology officers from large companies, with more than 100 employees, in the US. The scope of the research was to determine to what degree these companies allow their employees to use social networking sites if any. As expected, and revealed by several other studies before, most (54 percent) restrict access of any kind to sites like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. A further 19 percent only allow their employees to use them for work-related purposes while another 16 percent of companies do allow some personal use. Finally only 10 percent of large companies in the US don't put any restrictions on social media use.
The results themselves aren't surprising but do show that businesses are reluctant to give their employees too much freedom when it comes to social media. However, the numbers may be a bit misleading as they don't go into much detail on how exactly the companies implement the restrictions if any. A company may block access using filtering technology or it may just have a no-social-media-use policy without reinforcing it. Also, companies may give certain employees more privileges if they needed to access these sites as part of their jobs.