Facebook at work: If you can’t beat them, join them

Nov 12, 2007 by Dirk Singer

Over the past few months there’s been a steady stream of articles in both the UK and US about employers cracking down on the use of social networks in the office. The latest piece comes from today’s Guardian, which conducted research showing that 1,700 public employees have been carpeted by their bosses for web or email misuse.

At the same time, the article talks about Facebook users being logged in for almost two and a half hours a day, a lot of that at work.

I’d make two observations about this.

First of all, the stats show that if you are a brand wanting to target consumers during working hours, then reaching them through social networks and developing applications that they can use during work downtime is a very good way of doing so.

Secondly, a lot of employers could be missing a trick here. Rather than take away the toys, IT firm Serena Software has adopted a completely different approach effectively coopting Facebook as a company productivity tool. Workers are positively encouraged to go on it and are even given time to update their profiles.

According to company boss Jeremy Burton, Facebook fills the gap between emails and talking to people and works particularly well if you have multiple locations. By looking at a co-worker’s interests, it humanises the interaction by fills in the all-important small talk around the actual work conversation.

Burton’s philosophy is a sound one: “If you treat them like adults, they’ll take responsibility for what they do.”

Internet firm Barracuda, which itself restricts staff from going on social networks, calls this approach “pretty bleeding edge.”

Is it?

The issue of staff trust aside, what Serena Software has done is not only pragmatic, it is also very smart. It’s realistic as it takes into account that people will spend time on social networks. It’s smart as it effectively turns Facebook from something where people plan their social lives, into a form of company intranet.

What’s the bet that, knowing that all their colleagues and bosses constantly click on their profiles, Serena employees actually spend less, and not more time socialising with their mates on Facebook than they would otherwise.