Social networking hitting businesses where it hurts

By Stevie Smith Sep 11, 2007, 11:48 GMT

With the phenomenal effect of social networking Web sites leading to the business world pondering the application of work-based restrictions and outright employee bans, figures released this week indicate that usage in the office is costing UK companies around £130 million GBP each day.

Specifically, employment law firm Peninsula is offering that approximately 233 million hours of work time is being lost every month to the draw of online distractions including the likes of popular social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace, reports the Manchester Evening News.

"Why should employers allow their workers to waste two hours a day on Facebook when they are being paid to do a job?" outlined Mike Huss of Peninsula before offering that the calculated losses are minimums he fully expects to escalate over time.

"Some companies are happy to let their workers use the Internet for personal use, assuming that goals and targets are achieved," he added. "However loss of productivity through social networks such as Facebook is proving to be a major headache and my advice would be for companies to block access."

Peninsula’s figures, and the opinions of senior employment law specialist Huss, are presented on the back of a survey covering some 3,500 different companies spread throughout the United Kingdom. They conflict directly with last week’s call by the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) to allow employees access to social network Web sites while at work.

In terms of how companies should approach employees taking time out of their work day to indulge in personal social network use, Huss suggests that: "Continued misuse of the Internet by an employee is a situation when disciplining and sacking a worker is acceptable." He also warns that, "sites such as Facebook will only get more popular as time goes by and so I anticipate productivity will suffer as a consequence."