[...] fascinating bit of research, which originated on Vnunet.com, via Rialtas.net and eventually the Wikinomics [...]

If you’ve got your recruitment right and you have employees you can trust to deliver excellent work no matter what, then allowing social networks should be no problem.

The social commentators all know that they only use their social networks in ways that are wholly beneficial for the company (even if it’s indirectly by being good for their personal wellbeing). It might be possible that there are one or two others who don’t really have the company’s best interests in mind and choose to while away their days twittering, facebooking, youtubing, myspaceing (are these verbs yet?) and of course googling (definitely a verb now) instead of actually contributing to the company (isn’t their mere presence enough?).

The challenge for companies is to be able to tell the difference. An outright ban doesn’t inspire confidence or indicate a level of trust. Equally, total acceptance can be open to abuse.

The answer is obvious, create an inspiring and motivating company where the employees are filled with excitement and enjoyment in the work that they perform, meaning that any social network use will integrate seamlessly with the aligned objectives of both the employee and the company. How to actually achieve that is a whole different question and one that very few companies have yet managed.

The ultimate test of how effective a policy is may be to pose the question “how many people work in your company?” If the answer is “about half of them” or something similar then perhaps the approach to social networking in the office needs to be reassessed.

Andy – exactly. As one of my colleagues at a large gov agency noted, “you don’t make policy based on the 2% that will abuse it.”

Dan
Interesting that your government contact said that – my experience of working in the public service is quite the opposite with policy and laws made to apply precisely to those 2% who do not “do the right thing”. This is particularly the case for criminal and civil law. For the workplace though, it depends on whether managers are seeking to control the behaviour of their employees towards the work that has been allocated to them, or whether they are more open to new ways of working and wish to encourage their employees to forge new relationships and develop new work processes. It’s the old innovation / equilibrium argument and while the world is not as black and white as the above, the potential for abuse of an open system is always there.