Question

Cyberloafing: Balancing Communication Priorities

Vector Technology is suffering from cyber-loafing, which is employee use of work internet access for personal use. Can you lead a task force in creating a new social media policy for Vector before productivity drops even further? Keep in mind that you don't want to create employee backlash!

Answer 1

New social media policy should be communicated effectively among employees so that it leads to positive impact on employees’ performance and satisfaction instead of employees backlashes. Organizations can manage the occurrence of social-loafing through three methods-

1. Acceptable use policies- establish policies which outline who can access the internet and use e-mail for business related purposes. Company should also include a statement reserving the right to monitor internet and e-mail use, which will remove employee expectations of privacy and in turn reduce lawsuits alleging invasion of privacy. Allow internet before or after work or during breaks to help employees balance work and their personal lives.

2. Monitoring and filtering software- monitoring software compiles a report of each website visited by an employee and filtering software blocks access to particular web-pages. Companies should share these internet usage reports to give feedback on policy compliance.

3. Organizational sanctions- Company can take different approach also by providing counseling services to employees who may have an internet addiction problem.

These methods can be included in creating new social media policy in an organization for employees. But these should be communicated very well to the employees.