Should you be allowing your employees to spend time on Facebook?

A recent article I read from Mashable.com brought up some interesting facts on just how much Facebook can affect your employees and it makes you ask yourself should you be blocking social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr from your employees while they are on the job? Before you decide what you to do you not only need to look at the five major problems that arise from using Facebook while at work, but you also need to look at if you use Facebook or other social media sites as business tools. The first problem that arises from Facebook at work is it lowers productivity, people focus their attention on Facebook and Twitter to see what all of their friends are up to at this very moment in time, making them spend less time on things that need their attention, such as their big project they have due in two days. The second problem that arises is it encourages unfair comparisons, it makes your employees look at what they don’t have and what other people they’re friends with have accomplished instead of seeing the great things they have done in their life. The next two problems that arrive kind of go hand in hand, it is difficult to measure success and there is no direct link to sales. This basically means that you have no idea just how valuable or invaluable your Facebook page for your business actually is, it could boost your client list exponentially or it really could not be doing anything at all for your client list but just be sitting there.  And the last and final problem that arises from Facebook at work is there is no human connection in “the cloud”. The cloud is basically a term used for everything that is on the internet, and while there is a vast amount of information out there that you can get to learn new things you have absolutely no human interaction when you get those things. If you spend eight hours a day on social media sites those are just eight less hours that you spend getting to actually know certain clients or learning how you need to interact with your clients.  All in all Facebook and other social media websites are both a blessing and a curse when it comes to businesses, they allow you to get your business’s name out there but if you allow your employees to spend too much time on those sites daily you end up losing productivity. I think it is necessary for businesses to not only monitor their employees social media activities while they’re at work (i.e how long they spend on the sites for personal use) but they also need to limit how much time they can spend on those websites while at the work place.

 The above is a chart which asks employees "How often do you check the following inboxes?" 

(http://www.fastcompany.com/1701850/how-social-media-has-changed-workplace-study)

http://mashable.com/2013/09/30/facebook-small-business/