| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Employees are expected to use social networking sites as their main tool of business communication in the future. Gartner, an analyst firm, has predicted that one in five employees will use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as their favoured form of business interaction by 2014. Monica Basso, research vice-president at Gartner, said that social networking services will usurp email at work due to greater availability of such sites combined with changing employee demographics and evolving work styles. Ms Basso said that over time younger employees will see social networking sites as the natural way to communicate but this will sometimes still be used in conjunction with conventional methods such as email. "The rigid distinction between email and social networks will erode. Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities," she added. Basso has called on employers to start investing in communications and collaboration tools as taking the initiative will allow them to take the lead as opposed to having to react to changing circumstances. Businesses which are not proactive may have to employ performance improvement consulting experts in order to keep hold of staff and customers and provide a world-class service. Jon Ingham, a social media and HR consultant, told Personnel Today that almost two-thirds of British businesses ban their workers from accessing social media sites, which can make them look old fashioned. The best way for a business to minimise the risks from their employees using social media is to introduce a policy which they should clearly communicate to their workforce. Personnel Today reported that the ten social media risks for employers are: - Employee posts derogatory comments about employer.
- Employee posts video clips that may bring employer into disrepute.
- Employees leak confidential information about their employer.
- Employee airs controversial views on blogs in which their employer is named.
- Rejecting an applicant because of the content of their Facebook profile.
- An employee takes lists of contacts they have built up from social media sites accessed in work and their own time and then leaves to work for a rival.
- Employees post user-generated content on internal sites without checking copyright status or accuracy.
- Employees spend too much time at work on social media sites.
- Using information posted on blogs when making recruitment decisions.
- Cyber-bullying of other employees. Businesses can avoid such risks by informing their workforce about the disciplinary consequences of the ten points as part of a social media policy.
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