October 28, 2009
Banning employees from visiting social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter at work isn’t a good idea, according to Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian.
“I think it’s a mistake,” the privacy commissioner told ITBusiness.ca. “It’s like waving the proverbial red flag in front of your staff – it’s almost a challenge to them to find a way around it.”
Cavoukian said she completely understands why in today’s environment some businesses may favour an outright ban, but says such prohibitions are almost always counterproductive.
‘Blanket bans can backfire’
“Employees tend to re-route around a blog, go to another server, and find other ingenious ways of doing what they want to. And these rerouting efforts may actually be even more time consuming.”
The privacy commissioner’s remarks come in the wake of a study released by a U.K. firm Monday showing that people who use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, while at work, extract a heavy cost on their employers.
Employees using Twitter and other social networks in the office cost U.K. businesses about 1.38 billion pounds (around Can$2.40 billion) a year, according to London-based Morse plc, an IT services and technology company.
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Tags: employee retention, facebook, info-tech research group, Social Marketing, social media, twitter
