Apr 22nd, 2009 |
As a consultant focused in the Employee and Organization Performance space, I came across an interesting Reuters post linking enhanced productivity in employees who use Facebook and YouTube at work. The article noted a University of Melbourne study that showed people are about 9% more productive when using the Internet for personal reasons while at work.
In today’s widely accessible, internet-based collaborative environments, one could question the ability for employees to maintain focus on their day-to-day activities. To this point, I have seen countless private and public sector examples where tools such as Instant Messenger apps or community collaboration sites were locked down or blocked.
With the entrance of a new generation in our workforce comes the increased adoption of on-line social networking and collaboration tools. Taking away the ability of this generation to work and interact within these environments limits channels for enhanced connections both personally and professionally.
I’d be considered a Generation X employee, joining the workforce around about the time when email became mainstream. When I joined Accenture in the mid-90’s, voicemail was the chosen vehicle for broadcasting Corporate messaging to our global workforce. Email quickly followed as the channel of choice for connecting employees, which was made possible through laptop enablement (note: I recall the strong policy and leadership messaging that email was to be strictly used for business purposes). We then brought the intranet online and provided the ability for employees to share knowledge, messaging and ideas via websites and collaboration rooms.
Thinking back to the technology we used when I joined, I’m fairly certain that in 1995 I used to get 2 voicemails per hour (which admittedly a number of them were from friends lining up plans for the weekend or suggesting menu items for dinner). These days I’m getting about 2 voicemails per month, and most of my networking is via email, some of which are understandably social (and “unproductive”) in nature.
I can’t speak to the vehicle of choice for staying connected before this technology stuff. However I can only speculate from newspaper cartoons and TV shows like Madmen (set in the 60’s) that there was a time where the water cooler was the collaboration tool of choice for work and non-work related topics. People stayed connected and engaged with colleagues and friends. They shared ideas, topics of interest, lined up dinner plans, arranged socials and followed up on work projects. Out of interest, check out Wikipedia where it can be duly noted that the water cooler is called out as a social networking tool.
I have to wonder, how much productivity was actually lost by keeping the water flowing? Were employees who had daily water cooler social interactions more or less productive than desk-chained colleagues? Seeing as how I have yet to come across an example of a water cooler “lock-down”, I can only un-scientifically speculate, backed with some methodological research thanks to University of Melbourne, that social networking technology is in fact a useful tool to maintaining a more productive workforce.
