question please 14

[netnerdnerd9]

Hi this question is for the experts as I am not an expert.

I am wondering , if anyone can tell me the regulations with regard to making use of social networking sites at work? I work at an i.t company and they come down hard on us what is your feelings in this regard?

 

[traingamer]

(disclaimer: I love my job; I've been with the same company for 13 years)

Translation: my boss reads this site.

Greg
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. Kierkegaard

 

[flapeyre]

traingamer:

He isn't, AFAIK. But other people in the office might be - it's a large company.

-- Francis
Et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos.

 

[netnerdnerd9]

That makes total sense and I COMPLETELY get what you are saying! Some of those social networking sites particularly facebook actually has a mixture of work/friends/family ect contacts on it. I can imagine what will happen if you were say looking for a new job with better pay and your company found out about it due to a status!

 

[Diancecht]

The very fact that restrictions need to be put in place, and that fact that we're actually having this discussion speaks to the lack of professionalism in the workplace

Well, that's an approach. Mine is slightly different, based on responsability. I don't want non-professional people sitting in my office behind a corporate firewall, I want them out.

So I assign objectives, and if you can make them, then you're a professional, I don't mind if you get them via Facebook or if you have time enough to maintain your blog at working hours. And if it's the case, it's not a worker's fault, the management is guilty of lack of resource optimization.

Said that, I'd like an open corporate environment with a policy to cover legal aspects (so the company states whatever you do is up to you and you're responsible fro that). And some kind of audir rules in case you detect something fraudulent.

I mean, don't forbid as first approach, give them a chance and you will know what you have.

Cheers,
Dian

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> I don't want non-professional people sitting in my office behind a corporate firewall,
Nobody does.

==> So I assign objectives, and if you can make them, then you're a professional
Yes and no. Meeting the objectives is part of being a professional. Image also matters. I had someone who was extremely talented, and never, never missed an assignment and always provided high quality work. I could also count on her to deliver the goods; however, that's only half the picture. Her other behavior cost us. Her on-line personna reflected on the entire company, and ultimately, she become a larger liability than she was an asset, not just to the company, but to herself as well.

Responsibility and professionalism is a total package; it's not just about completing assigned tasks.

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[SQLSister]

Would you agree a company policy forbidding phone calls would be ethically correct?"

Both ethically and legally correct, yes. A company has the right to regulate what you do on their grounds and during the hours you are being paid. They are under no obligation to let you make personal calls.

I've worked plenty of places that forbade personal phone calls during work hours or using their equipment. You could use your cell phone during a break, but even then, I've worked places where you had to leave the building to use the cell phone.

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

 

[HungryHouse]

This issue is far simpler than many are making it seem.
The company policy will dictate whether you can/should use social networking web technology at work, and if so, for what purposes.

Most forward-thinking employers have already incorporated themselves in the world of social media as a marketing vehicle and many have encouraged their employees to do so if its consistent with the company's direction and methods of going to market.

If its against company policy to get on your Facebook using work computers, then its pretty clear cut, isn't it?

If you MUST check your facebook or twitter, do it on your Blackberry or iPhone on your breaks or at lunch...issue solved.

This is company dependent and as such any HR organization worth its salt has already issued policy on this. If not, they must be living in the dark.

This seems pretty clear cut to me.

-HH

Real trouble call:
Customer: "I have a huge problem. A friend has put a screensaver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears!"

 

[Welshbird]

SQL Sister - The european legislation (which must be followed in the UK) would disagree with you - a test case decided that an individual was entitled to a private life both at work and at home.


Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[guitarzan]

willif: Out of curiosity, what legislation are you referring to?

 

[strongm]

Fee, I believe the rulings - based indeed on the increasingly infamous "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence" clause in the European Convention on Human Rights, and which resulted in the Home Office issuing new guidance to companies - were related to whether private phone calls at work could be monitored or recorded (the ruling says not), but is not specific about whether such calls should be allowed in the first place. A few papers at the time seem of the ECHR ruling to have got confused.

 

[Diancecht]

A company has the right to regulate what you do on their grounds and during the hours you are being paid. They are under no obligation to let you make personal calls.

Back to the slaves. They're not hiring my person, they're hiring my job. No company can force me to disconnect from my social, personal or familiar environment. And I find really amazing that you can ethically approve that.

Cheers,
Dian

 

[guitarzan]

Dian,

Let's say I worked for you. How much time can I spend (in an 8-hour day, 5-day week) on my "social, personal or familiar environment" per day? 15 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours?

Because, I would like at LEAST two hours a day, please. I have Twitter updates to read, a Facebook profile to update, and when else am I going to forward those joke emails to all my contacts? From home??? The other six hours, I will spend doing work for your company. That gives you 30 hours of my exceptional work per week. But you will pay me for 40. Is that OK? I mean, Dian, I'm not your slave...

 

[Golom]

No company can force me to disconnect from my social, personal or familiar environment. And I find really amazing that you can ethically approve that.

Of course they can't ... but they can certainly decline to pay you for attending to your social, personal or family matters in preference to what they are paying you for.

It seems real simple. They pay you to perform certain tasks. Instead you divert into doing something else.

If there is an ethical failure here it is yours. You are expecting the company to fulfill their part of the bargin (i.e. paying you) but you are not doing what you commited to do in return for that payment.

 

[Diancecht]

I don't say social networks are the one and only of the worker rigths, but I find totally useless spendig so much time and effort forbidding them.

You have two children: one of them can get chocolates because he eats one or two. The other one can't because he doesn't know when to stop. Your sollution: no one eats chocolates.

I've seen a lot of people doing his job efficiently without any kind of rules. I can access a lot of places where I don't go when I'm busy. And if I don't do my job, then I would expect my boss to investigate, and fire me if he detects I'm losing my time, with Facebook or with origami.

Cheers,
Dian

 

[guitarzan]

And if I don't do my job, then I would expect my boss to investigate, and fire me if he detects I'm losing my time, with Facebook or with origami

Yes, this is the main point several here have tried to make. You now seem to agree that it is at least expected that an employer will take action against an employee who uses paid time for non-work activities. I think it is ethical as well. An employer has the right to control what an employee does on work time (barring emergencies, and break/lunch time),

You have two children: one of them can get chocolates because he eats one or two. The other one can't because he doesn't know when to stop. Your sollution: no one eats chocolates

The first kid gets the cholcolates, and the second kid gets fired !!! ;-)

Bad analogy, though... Employers that ban Facebook et. al. do so on their computers, during work hours. Not after hours. Work does not constitute most people's entire lives. So, both "children" in this case would only be without their "chocolates" during work hours. "Chocolate" during work time is not an employee's right. They can gorge on their "chocolates", or their "origami", to their heart's content at home.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==>The other one can't because he doesn't know when to stop. Your sollution: no one eats chocolates.
To make your analogy fit, the solution would be that the company stops providing chocolate and states that anyone may bring their own chocolate, but it may only be consumed in the break room, and only during authorized breaks.

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Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[netnerdnerd9]

Wow guys, some really interesting stuff here,I asked the question and am getting so much additional food for thought.

To add a spanner in the works so to speak this is really an interesting dilemma. Do you think it may be a bit too far fetched?

http://mytrampingview.blogspot.com/2009/04/sick-employee-fired-because-of-facebook.html

I can totally see this type of thing happening all of the world do you think its fair? Should companys be able to judge people on this? very catch 22 in my opinion.

I think it is a good example of the magnitude of the problem!

 

[Welshbird]

I'd like to ask another question - how many of us are responding to this thread (which isn't technical) during work hours?

Hmmm?

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[gbaughma]

Heh.... I just had a funny thought.

I wonder if the original thread was started while the poster was at work.

I would consider Tek-Tips a social site.



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> I would consider Tek-Tips a social site.
That depends on which fora you visit. For some of them, it's nothing but social; however, for others, it's all technical.


--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein