By Jonathan Priestley

The impact of social media on the British workplace has been documented by the UK’s largest network of regional job boards, with a groundbreaking whitepaper featuring the findings published today.

MyJobGroup, which operates over 300 regional job boards across the UK, teamed up with the EPRU (Efficiency and Productivity Research Unit) at the University of Leicester to write the landmark document; the first of its kind to be published in the UK.

Following extensive research, MyJobGroup.co.uk analysed the responses of 1,000 UK adults to questions covering a broad range of topics relating to social media use in the workplace. These included subjects such as criticising bosses, peers and office juniors, the amount of time spent on social networks including Facebook and Twitter and its perceived impact on workplace productivity and the issue of using data from social media profiles for the recruitment process.

The findings, published in full and available to download from MyJobGroup.co.uk at www.myjobgroup.co.uk/socialmediawhitepaper, provide a unique glimpse into the way that emerging social media channels are radically changing the UK workplace.

It is hoped the whitepaper will provide recruiters and employees vital insight into how they can adapt to these changes, whilst ensuring that they have the correct HR procedures in place to deal with any malpractice.

Lee Fayer, Managing Director of MyJobGroup.co.uk, said: “We are delighted to launch our whitepaper on the effects of social media on the workplace today; the first such whitepaper to be published on the subject in the UK.

“We are proud to be at the forefront of what is an emerging issue for businesses and organisations across the UK and we hope that the whitepaper will be an invaluable resource for employer and employee alike.

“Social media is radically changing the landscape of the UK workplace and we aim to equip and inform those at the cutting edge how best to tackle the challenges this can bring up.”

Dr Meryem Duygun Fethi, from the University of Leicester’s School of Management, said: “This White Paper is not only important to gauge the productivity implications of social media but also to alert employers about the need to have a clear policy on the use of such media in the work place.

“Improvements in productivity are essential for companies to enhance their competitiveness in the market which in turn, contribute to the growth of the UK economy.

“As co-ordinator of the Efficiency & Productivity Research Unit (EPRU) at the University of Leicester, we are pleased to partner with MyJobGroup.co.uk in the production of this important White Paper.”

For more information visit www.myjobgroup.co.uk/socialmediawhitepaper .

About the author and MyJobGroup

Jonathan Priestley is PR for MyJobGroup, a fast growing network of online regional job boards in the UK, offering employers and jobseekers more than 300 fully interactive sites across England, Scotland and Wales. As the only national job board specialising solely in regional and local sites, MyJobGroup offers a unique platform for both finding employment and sourcing quality candidates within a specific geographic location. MyJobGroup was launched in 2005 following a niche being identified in the online recruitment market; there were over 1,000 job boards on the web, but none were seriously serving a local marketplace (typically the domain of the local newspaper). MyJobGroup’s mission was to build a successful product to serve Sheffield and compete with the city’s newspapers and the company has since grown rapidly, using this successful template.