Being social at work and recruitment
by Matthew Hodgson
Sadly, you don’t have to look too far for statistics on how people using social media at work are wasting time and money.
A survey conducted by information security consultancy Global Secure Systems (GSS) and Infosecurity Europe found that 776 office workers admitted to spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites while at work. This equates to 3 weeks per year or £6.5 billion annually in lost productivity [1] through people throwing sheep and checking out people’s hotness on Facebook. Similar research in Australia by internet security company, SurfControl, estimates that Australian employees spend approximately one hour a day on the social networking site — costing employers approximately $5 billion Australian ($4 billion US) a year in lost productivity [2]. With these statistics, surely you’d want to be firing, not hiring people who use these tools!
Researchers for Gartner, though, suggest that there are huge opportunities for improving the management of large firms by using social media.
“Businesses which harness how employees use these sites stand to increase savings, productivity and profits” — Jeffrey Mann, Gartner.
One area that may tend to be overlooked is the value of social media in recruitment.
At a recent corporate executive summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, PR company Edelman revealed that social networking shaved 1% off its bottom line by encouraging its staff to use such websites as a recruitment tool [3]. UK CEO Robert Phillips said it was cheaper than using recruitment consultants and more beneficial at tracking down the right person.
“We get a better quality recruit. They are much more engaged with the firm and who the firm ‘is’”
With studies on social networks indicating higher productivity for those who use virtual networks, recruiting individuals through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, may in fact yield higher quality candidates who are better able to use social media to share, collaborate and find information much more quickly to the benefit of the organisation. They may even be able to help break down the silos and social barriers within organisations that limit knowledge flow [4] . . . wouldn’t that be good!
M
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1. The Birchley Hall Press News, 2008. Online social networking costs £6.5bn in lost productivity and opens security risk, 13 Feb. Online at: http://www.bjhcim.co.uk/news/2008/n802015.htm
2. Aune, S. P. 2007. Fuzzy Math: Facebook Costs Australia $4 Billion in Lost Productivity, August 20, 11:57 am PDT. Online at: http://mashable.com/2007/08/20/facebook-productivity/
3. Shiels, M. 2008. Firms ‘miss’ social site success, BBC News. 07:01 GMT, Friday, 11 July. Online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7501073.stm
. Aral, S., Brynjolfsson, E. Marshall Van Alstyne, E. M. (2006) Network Structure & Information Advantage: Structural Determinants of Access to Novel Information. Workshop on Information Systems Economics. Online at: http://digital.mit.edu/wise2006/papers/3a-3_aral,%20brynjolfsson%20&%20van%20alstyne%20-%20network%20structure%20&%20information%20advantage.pdf
Thought...
