Social networking in today’s generation is one of the useful resources and almost everyone is using these sites everyday for some or the other reason. Companies make this social networking available in the office to allow employees to share information with one another throughout the day or while away from the office and to build relationships with one another. Websites such as facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offer free advertising and other benefits for a company or business. This social networking is useful and there are also some disadvantages of using this social networking at the work place. Here are some pros and cons for using social networking sites at the work place.
Pros of using social networking sites:
• Usage of social networking will facilitate to have an open communication which will in turn lead to enhanced discovery of information and delivery
• Employees can share their views, post news, can ask questions and share links
• Helps to increase business contacts, reputation and client base with minimum usage of advertising
• This will help the employers to learn more about the potential and current employees
• Will help the employees to share the information between them
• Companies can promote their business online without paying any money for advertising
• Employees can gather information which will help them to perform their duties well
Cons of using social networking sites:
• Excess usage of social networking sites like facebook, twitter etc will decrease the productivity because many of them compulsively use and check facebook account to check their wealth of application, games and status updates.
• When employees use social media for chatting, there is also a risk of releasing confidential and proprietary information because employees may inadvertently post status message and tweet about their company’s promotions or business information that is restricted to be released publicly
• Usage of facebook can hurt the relationships of the employees within a company
• When companies use social networking sites for internal communication, most of the employees instead of conversing about the work they may go for off-task conversation
• There is a possibility of hackers to commit fraud and introduce virus attack
• There is a chance that employees may pass negative comments about the company or may lead to potential legal consequences if the employees use these sites to view objectionable, illicit and offensive material
Usage of social networking at the work place has become essential but there should be some restrictions for using this social networking, because too much usage of social networking will decrease the productivity which will in turn bring huge loss to the company. Therefore companies have to educate their employees in proper usage of social networking and should adopt an appropriate policy for employees for using social media in the office.