Social Networking: The New Workplace Smoke Break 105
snydeq writes "J. Peter Bruzzese sees a solution for organizations seeking to cut down employee time spent on social networks at work: treat social networking like a smoke break. 'Try as you might to keep social networks at bay, mobile devices let people be in constant connection to their social networking vices over the cellular networks, which you can't block. Still, it's not completely impossible to stop social time-wasting over mobile: You can establish policies that, if enforced strongly enough, eliminate social networks from being accessed on company time. Treat it like smoking: Let employees take a 15-minute coffee/smoking/Facebook break and make them go to a designated area to do it.'"
Re:It's not a "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
Management doesn't know shit. Taking short breaks isn't slacking off, and studies have shown that such breaks improve worker productivity.
Management's problem is that it sees everything through a veil of pie charts and graphs, and if someone spends five minutes looking at pictures of their kids on Facebook, it must mean 0.2058% less revenue. Gotta fret over those graphs and spreadsheets.
Also, yeeeaah, can you come in on Sunday, too? We lost some people and need to catch up. Thaaaanks.
Re:It's not a "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of worrying about what employees are doing with their time at work, the focus should be on how much work employees get done. Who's the better employee, the guy who works 9 to 5 or the guy who works 8 to 6? What if the guy who works 9 to 5 doesn't take a break but the guy who works 8-6 spends 4 hours playing games online? And on top of that, what if 9-5 guy finishes one project a day while 8-6 finishes 3? The guy who meets his deadlines and accomplishes things is the guy you want, regardless of whether he's taking smoke breaks, playing games, or spending time on social media sites (assuming he isn't distracting other workers, a health risk, etc., etc.).
I'd rather use the break... (Score:5, Insightful)
"We don't really get this social media thing, but we DO understand smoke breaks. Just send the geeks outside with the rest! Problem solved."
Counterproductive (Score:3, Insightful)
Since small breaks are actually needed to keep the brain fresh and doing good work what do you get forbidding these things? Answer: nothing good. People will find something else to do on the breaks even if it's talking to coworkers besides the coffee machine. Besides, they will be more resented, angry and productivity will probably be lower than if they were happy.
Of course, one thing is taking small breaks and another one is checking facebook every 5 minutes. In that case you're probably getting no work done. In the end is the same as restricting the Internet: A middle ground is probably the best choice. It also helps to communicate clearly the company policies regarding these things.
Re:It's not a "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the slack executive that is incompetent at his job and got promoted by being a skilled psychopath. They can't do their job properly so they will take the easiest measures and that includes just firing 15% of the workforce at random to keep the rest on toes. Instil fear in the workers as the psychopath strolls around deciding who at random they will fire and what lies they will make up for the firing.
Treat people as individuals (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have competent management they cn tell who gets work done. Unless you work in a factory where you have shift breaks you can tell who isn't pulling their weight. It doesn't matter the reason. If someone can do the work while reading slashdot a few times a day who cares?
Re:So - the smokers get double breaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slacking is slacking (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not a "right" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not a "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
The core problem, of course, is that many workplaces (particularly offices) have no adequate way to measure employee productivity and thus use "time spent staring at your desk at a VDU" or similar as a surrogate indicator of performance.
The most productive people I know are the ones who regularly take short breaks. Even when we're in the middle of a crisis, our bosses will insist on us taking short breaks, and as an ex-smoker I still take fag breaks - you'd be amazed how many eureka* moments you can get whilst standing outside the office looking at a flower bed or waiting in line for a coffee wondering what the difference between two roasts is.
Just like too much coffee can ruin your concentration, staying on the same problem for too long frequently makes you blind to the actual solution.
* itself, of course, a term coined when the frustrated Archimedes took a break from trying to solve his problem.
Re:Ummm, that is what they are proposing (Score:4, Insightful)
One of my assistants was basically doing her work between using facebook, plenty of fish, etc., etc. I discovered this because work wasn't getting done on time, what was getting done was poorly done, and things were getting totally forgotten. Fortunately, she was using the office computer and not her phone so it was easy to check the logs.
Maybe there really are people who can multitask so that checking FB or whatever every 10 minutes doesn't interfere with their work, but I'm skeptical. I know whenever I try to do complex tasks simultaneously, I end up doing everything less well. From watching how this particular assistant, who always seems to be doing everything frenetically, and yet accomplishing very little and that, poorly, I'm even less convinced there is any value in FB for my business. So I'm one of those assholes who just blocks it at the firewall, along with a bunch of other crap.