With the boom in social media over the last five or so years, it is no surprise to learn that many employers are now actively monitoring employee use of social media. There is a good story on just that at Inc.com. This seems to be the fad of the moment, but I’d like to show you another way to think about employee social media use.
My thoughts begin with wondering what we accomplish by monitoring employees, in almost any way. While it is undeniable that a managers job is to supervise, does that supervision need to be to that level? I suggest not. Most managers do not intend to micro manage their staff, but this type of Orwellian monitoring can be nothing else.
The primary thing to consider is whether your employees meet the performance targets you have established. If they do, does their use of Facebook, MySpace or so forth really even matter? If they don’t meet performance targets, you can then manage them as appropriate to bring them up to the level required. It’s too easy to shirk responsibility for that performance management and supervision, blaming social media or the internet in general.
Tarring everybody with the same brush is counter-productive. It alienates your good staff, your star performers, who may at times deviate from their work tasks for a moment or two. Instead, focus on performance. If performance is fine, don’t change a thing.
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Yeah, this is going on everywhere. People with office jobs spend dull moments in front of the PC on their facebook page. I would not allow it myself. I am sure there could be other things for them to do. Eventually employers will have to disclose no use of Facebook on company time when hiring new employees.