Facebook/YouTube/Myspace access during office hours 6

[chriscboy]

Hi,

The head of our dept has asked me whether we should allow our employees to have access to Facebook/YouTube/Myspace so that they can find out information about our customers / prospective customers.

I personally think this is a bad idea as I believe these apps are productivity killers and should only be used outside of work.

Do you have any policies/suggestions regarding the above? I would be interested to hear your thoughts!

 

[lespaul]

all blocked here....what kind of customers does your business work with that would have accounts on those sites? What kinds of information do you expect to get from those sites?

I think FaceBook is targeted at the "older" generation, but MySpace seems to be more teen oriented and YouTube is videos....

Leslie

 

[Cstorms]

I agree, of course we would need to know what type of business you do but I can see NO reason to allow any of these sites and they are not only time consuming but in the case of MySpace may lead users to malicious content or links to software that you would be cursing yourself later if it ever got installed.

Keep your enviroment safe and productive and do yourself a favor and keep these out of reach.

Cory

 

[lionelhill]

Besides which, if any of your staff let slip to any of your customers a piece of information that the customer realises they could have got from myspace/whatever, that will be the last you see of that customer.

If any firm I dealt with suddenly knew about my family birthday parties and that I like treacle sandwiches, frankly I'd find it scary/spooky/intrusive, and I wouldn't have anything to do with that company again. Ever.

Myspace is hardly private, but people have a misconception that it is, and some clients would definitely regard this sort of action as one step short of cyber-spying. Not good business.

 

[chriscboy]

Hi,

Thanks for your answers. You give some valid reasons to back me up when I go back to my manager and say no!

Regards

Chris

 

[kmcferrin]

Unless your job involves compiling clips for America's Funniest Videos, I can see how YouTube access really falls under the category of necessary for business.

Facebook and Myspace, however, have been used by HR departments from time to time to "check out" applicants and make sure that there are no obvious red flags (i.e., they brag about getting drunk and high every night, therefore they may not be a particularly productive employee). But I find even that practice somewhat questionable, especially in the case of Facebook where you're supposed to be a student to get acccess to it. At the very least you'd be gathering info on prospects under false pretenses.

 

[grande]

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with everyone. Only block them if they're becoming a problem. There is nothing wrong with employees checking these pages on their lunch or breaks.

I'd be hard-pressed to find a business purpose for accessing Facebook (beyond the already mentioned HR possibility), but if you treat your employees like criminals, they will leave.

-------------------------
Call me barely Impressive Captain.

 

[kmcferrin]

I'd be hard-pressed to find a business purpose for accessing Facebook (beyond the already mentioned HR possibility), but if you treat your employees like criminals, they will leave.

Well, there's a difference between treating your employees like criminals and maintaining the integrity of the systems that you support. Granted, if you blocked access to these sites then no doubt some aggrieved web surfer will complain that you're treating them like a criminal. However, there's been enough instances of malware propogating via Myspace and other social networking sites that blocking access to them falls under security best practices, not "making employees angry just because." Besides, I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever quit a job because they weren't allowed to surf Myspace or Facebook at work (at least not anyone worth employing).

 

[Cstorms]

The way I see it, if you are on your companies machines and it is during the workday, without explicit permission to do so in no way should you conduct personal matters that will have no potential benefit to your organization, and in all reality could cause harmful results.

If you are on break, this is not considered free reign time for all the employees. As much as I agree that a workplace should not be a suffocating environment and be a place to be productive and still enjoy yourself, it must in all respects still maintain a level of operation that will not lend itself to illicit or damaging activities.

If this is the type of company operation you desire and you are not being fulfilled, it is not a fault of the company, but a fault in your expectations.

Cory

 

[lionelhill]

As a user I'd far rather be physically blocked from looking at a site, than get in trouble for looking at something of which the management disapprove.

Some people will work well whatever distractions you make available.

Other people will find time-wasting activities no matter how hard you try to get them to work.

But there is a whole group in the middle who really wish someone would cut off our access to tek-tips because then we wouldn't be tempted to waste all this time offering advice on other corporations' use of FaceBook...

 

[Cstorms]

You know I was thinking about that while writing my response thats why I delicately added the "no potential benefit" part, as I know I have used these forums for work related issues and they have saved a decent amount of time.

It is pretty addicting here though...

Cory

 

[aarenot]

Cory here is your quote with a little reverse application,

"The way I see it, if you are on your personal machine and it is not during the workday, without explicit permission to do so in no way should you conduct business matters that will have no potential benefit to you opersonally, and in all reality could cause harmful unpaid work results.

If you are on personal time, this is not considered free reign time for all the companies requests for you to read email, or use your own PC, or ISP for company business, including IM, EM, reading trade docs, tek-tips research, other reasearch, or simply checking your outlook.. As much as I agree that a home should not be a suffocating environment and be a place to be un-productive and enjoy yourself, it must in all respects still maintain a level of operation that will not lend itself to illicit or damaging activities, suc h as work related activities in any form..

If this is not the type of company operation you desire and you are not being fulfilled, it is not a fault of the company, but a fault in your expectations.
Cory"


My point is, this. I had my boss question me about looking up my ebay watch list on my lunch during my third day of work in the week after about 48 hours so far that week. He asked me if I thought that was proper use of the company internet connection and desktop. I told him this. "Let's make a deal, I will never use the internet on my lunch, or break on company equipment( I did not use it for personal outside breaks/lunch), but instead go home after 8 hours to check my internet, and see you in the morning. Also, since I agree I should not use the company internet on my break or lunch, I am sure you will agree that I will not be using my home PC or internet for any company business either. DEAL?" Oh, by the way, my two weeks vacation I will be out of cell phone range, and since the company doesn't supply the internet in the resort, I will not be checking email for two weeks either.

I did go in and apologize about the way I said it, but not the substance of what I said. He agreed that when employees use personal assets for company business, the company has no business acting like a little tyrant about someone using the net on their break to go to major companies web sites that pose little threat.

 

[johncurtis]

To add to a point made by kmcferrin, we've had a PC infected by a trojan from an IM app on MySpace. Sites like this are now blocked.

John

I've got a stepladder. It's nice, but I wish I knew my real ladder.

 

[SQLSister]

And even the HR reason of investigating people is pretty lame. How can you be positive the site is the real John Smith or even the same John Smith you are looking for?

For instance, I know someone named Susan Smith. Should she be rendered unemployable becasue someone with the same name murdered her children even though she isn't that person or related to that person in any way except having the same name? I think all would agree that no of course not.

Basing someone's employability on investigating such sites which can be set up by anyone pretending to be anyone seems to me to be a very bad practice.

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

 

[RCorrigan]

News Article re Facebook

Employees who spend on average two hours day communicating through and pruning their Facebook page are costing employers on average £130m sterling a day, not to mention additional costs incurred by workers surreptitiously downloading videos and browsing blogs.

<Do I need A Signature or will an X do?>

 

[harebrain]

“The figures we have calculated are minimums and it’s a problem that I foresee will escalate,” explained Huss. “Some companies are happy to let their workers use the internet for personal use, assuming that goals and targets are achieved.

Contradicts the conclusion implied above, doesn't it?

On top of that, from The figures we have calculated are minimums and it’s a problem that I foresee will escalate, one must question the methodology involved. My take: a self-serving, WAG.

 

[kmcferrin]

Well, most studies of that nature are usually paid for by a company that sells filtering software, so I wouldn't give their "findings" too much weight.

 

[Dollie]

My users can complain all they want about the sites I have blocked. If ANY, repeat ANY, of them whinge about being treated like a criminal I'd simply ask them why they were treating their WORK COMPUTER like it was their own.

I've gotten the HR perspective, and I don't agree with them. We should call places on resumes for references, but we shouldn't be digging around through personal pages (assuming we can FIND it) on potential candidates.

They've signed usage policies. I have no problem reminding them of that fact, and reminding them that they're being paid to do things other than watch viral videos on youtube.

OTOH, I have no problem with them going onto the machine I have set up in our lunchroom specifically for personal use during lunch. It bypasses our network and goes straight to the internet, and has no blocks on it at all.

 

[lionelhill]

RCorrigan's quote was someone spending an average of 2hrs per day on FaceBook and the like.

So if some people only use it 10 minutes per day, and many don't use it at all, what are the rest doing to reach that average?

Could it be that this survey is a totally random survey of completely average extremely heavy FaceBook users?

 

[aarenot]

Guys, and Gals,
Realize that your employees often put in long hours, and often have to end up working from, or taking work home. In that case they often have to use personal PC, ISP resopurces for work, so it is not that big a deal to expect a little turn around at work.
To prove my point, how many of you in the last week have used any hardware, ISP, software, cell phone, wireless internet connection/account, personal credit card, personal vehicle, etc. for company business? In all reality with a strict usage policy it is not then reasonable to expect an employee to check their email, recieve, or send an IM/phone call, or research on the net for any company business from any personal access or device.
Be real, if your company expects to use personal resources, then shut the hell up about employees using company resources, or provide everyone a lappy, and an wireless(cellular) isp, and an extra barttery so they do not have to use home electricity to run their lappy.

Get real, and stop your whining, do your jobs, and deal with it.