Angus Kidman16 April 2008, 12:30 PM
A new study has confirmed some employees believe access to social networking sites is so important they'd leave their job rather than work for a company which blocked Facebook.
A new study has confirmed that some employees believe access to social networking sites is so important that they'd leave their job rather than work for a company which blocked Facebook.
A survey of 691 workers by law firm Deacons found that 16% said access to social networking sites would be a major influence in their job choice. That figure rose to almost one in four for people under 24.
As well, the Deacons' Social Networking Survey 2008 found that given the choice between two similar jobs where one employer blocked access to social networking sites and the other did not, 46% of social networking enthuiasts would use the ability to check out MySpace or poke a few friends on Facebook as a major criteria to determine which position they took.
Unsurprisingly, the use of such sites went up as employee ages went down. A quarter of 25-34 year olds had accessed social networking sites at work, and that rose to a third for employed people under 24. The overall figure was 14%, which means more people are probably still wasting time gossiping near the photocopier. For no readily obvious reason, usage was higher in Victoria and Tasmania (insert your own regional insults here).
While the notion of “digital natives” demanding access to sites which many businesses view as time wasters or security risks has often been discussed, the evidence presented for such assertions is often anecdotal. The Deacons survey demonstrates that such issues are indeed now a serious consideration in the office.
"There are risks with social networking sites in the workplace, such as adverse impacts on productivity, as well as heightened chances of harassment claims,” Deacons technology head Nck Abrahams noted in a release announcing the results. “One response is to block these sites but that action carries its own risks."
"Getting the balance right is particularly important in an economy with low levels of unemployment and intense competition for young talent."
The study also undermines the commonly-held notion that people see such sites as bad for business, with 76% of those surveyed seeing potential business benefits in social networking. The most prominent business benefit was not communication: instead, 68% said allowing access to such sites would show that employees were trusted.
Only 20% of those surveyed said their companies actively blocked social networking sites, though nearly a quarter weren't sure if they did or not. There's only one way to find out, folks. (And remember; if it's blocked, your boss doesn't trust you anyway, so why are you working so hard?)
Perhaps the saddest finding of the survey was that only 62% of people had Internet access at work in the first place. Our heart goes out to the other third of Australia's workplaces, especially if they have to slave away in call centres.