A new study/infographic from Mindflash and Column Five explores the question, ‘Are Companies Allowing Employees to Use Social Media in the Workplace?’ Not quite sure how much I trust the data, especially since they call the study an “informal global study”. Here are some key data points that certainly surprise me and sadden me at the same time:

• 48.3 percent of companies allow all employees access to social networking sites (This is a good start)
• 27 percent of companies actively monitor employees’ use of social media while at work (I am not sure how I feel about this. Who is monitoring the monitor?)
• 26.7 percent of companies offer access to social networking sites for a select group of employees (Many companies are doing pilot programs until they can figure out how to scale)
• 70 percent of all companies completely ban the use of social networking sites at work (Companies like this lack trust in their employees and still live in the command & control environment)
• 44 percent of companies do not have social media policies in place (Having a social media policy that protects the organization and empowers employees is imperative)
• 31 percent of companies had to use disciplinary action against employees misuse of social media (A direct result of not having a governance policy that guides employee behavior or a comprehensive training program)

The following is a portion of the infographic (full one here).

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2011 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.