By Chris Lee

Businesses appear to be coming to terms with the potential of allowing a reasonable amount of social networking among their staff. A Robert Half Technology study recently found that just under a third (31 per cent) of US companies now ban the use of social media at work, down from 54 per cent two years ago. Also, half (51 per cent) of US businesses allow employees to access social networks for work-related use, up from 19 per cent in 2009.

Despite this apparent warming of businesses towards social media, one Web security firm warns that businesses are losing an average of $65,000 per annum due to workers’ use of social media. SpamTitan, a company which has launched its own ‘social media calculator’ to help businesses evaluate the cost to business of employees’ social media usage, argues that workers using social networks for non-word related activity for just 20 minutes a day equates to five per cent of the corporate salary bill.

Growing online culture

Facebook now has more than 720 million members worldwide, according to CheckFacebook, and more than 200 million Twitter accounts exist.

According to SpamTitan, finding a way to manage non-work browsing habits, including accessing Facebook at work, tweeting, watching YouTube videos or any of the numerous other social media activities that can distract employees in their daily working lives, is proving challenging for companies. The company argues that its Social Media Cost Calculator shows that there is a significant cost involved and companies should think about how to stop this getting out of control.

“With companies now using social media to market to customers it is important that social media access is flexibly managed as roles require it, and that the web filtering tool employed to do this is dynamic enough to keep pace with changes within the organisation,” said Ronan Kavanagh, CEO of SpamTitan Technologies. “In the past companies just had to consider personal use of telephone and subsequently email, now they have a minefield of Internet related access points to consider.”

Proactive approach

Writing in Personnel Today magazine recently, Christopher Fisher and Purvis Ghani of law firm Mayer Brown, said that employers in the EU and US face similar challenges when dealing with the use of social media. While both have been relatively progressive in their acceptance of social media in the workplace when compared with countries in continental Europe, challenges remain, they argue.

“Many employers in the UK and US are ahead of the curve in comparison with employers in continental Europe and these employers can lead the way in helping others to deal with the challenges brought by the use of social media in the workplace,” they concluded.