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Procrastination used to be the thief of time. These days it is Facebook. Bosses grumble that staff waste hours fiddling around on networking websites. The inboxes of users are clogged with spam recording the latest non-event in their cyber social lives (“Dear member, a bored stranger just looked at your profile!”). Online communities include Skiving on Facebook, whose 115 members evidently believe employers are too stupid to rumble them.
The use of networking websites has spread contagiously among the computerised classes. If the cost in time wasted exceeds the value added, the relationship will resemble that of a parasite to its host organism. The main function of the technology will then be to divert resources towards its survival and growth.
Some big organisations, including the US Army and Transport for London, have blocked access to social networking websites. Good for them. Dresdner Kleinwort says of its own Facebook ban: “We only provide access to the internet for the purpose of conducting company business.”
Other employers are nervous of admitting they have imposed the same reasonable restriction. British Gas says while staff cannot network online at their workstations, they can do so on personal computers in break-out areas. This exposes leisure internet use to the scrutiny of managers. Lloyds TSB claims networking websites lie outside its firewall solely to protect its IT systems from viruses. Facebook itself declines to comment.
Employers would object robustly if staff threw private parties at work, photocopying their bottoms and grinding Cheesy Wotsits into the carpet squares. But organisations are afraid blocking access to the online equivalent will make them look like Luddite control freaks. Anthony Bradley of IT consultant Gartner expresses the accepted wisdom that “mainstream organisations should embrace technology and not stifle innovation”. He argues that bosses should dictate targets not behaviour, saying: “If you have to know what employees are doing every hour of the day, you are a bad manager.”
This may hold good for polite, white-collar businesses. But in some companies, trust is never debated because certain staff members can be relied on to steal any item that is not bolted down. That aside, one has to question the business utility of online networking by employees who have no external role.
In contrast, sales people and other deal-doers charged with building outside relationships have legitimate reasons for networking online. The websites are also markets and meeting places for the ever-expanding legions of service sector self-employed, who need to clump into teams to tackle big projects. The internet is a good place to find collaborators. Penny Power, co-founder of Ecademy, an online business network that started in the UK, estimates that more than half its 200,000 members are self-employed professionals. For many, the network is a substitute for the camaraderie of office life. She says: “It can be very lonely if you have left a big corporate and are sitting at home wondering where the next pay cheque will come from.”
Others in business struggle to understand both the potential and the practice of online networking. Sarah Green, head of social anthropology at Manchester University, says the advent of the telephone caused similar bewilderment. “Distance technology”, as she calls it, reduces context. This is a problem, given that “an awful lot of what goes on in business conversations is not openly stated”. Subtexts are less of an issue in such typical MySpace pleasantries as: “Big up gurl, you is reelly hot, innit!!!”
The unwillingness of many business people to network online partly reflects the lack of a commonly agreed etiquette. One knows the code that governs networking at work-related events. Do not buttonhole a bigwig who is deep in conversation with two other bigwigs. After chatting to a new acquaintance for a few minutes, disengage politely. And do not regale a man in episcopal purple with a tipsy impersonation of the comedian, Roy “Chubby” Brown.
Web networking is harder to fathom. If you post a picture of yourself in a tie, will you look like a square? If you are wearing an open-necked shirt, will you look like a hippy? If you message Philip Green asking for business tips, will he reply? And what is it about your profile (single male pensions actuary interested in steam locomotives) that has inspired an offer of friendship from a 21-year-old Thai woman?
The risk is that building a personal brand online will displace tasks with greater scope for advancement. It is easier to waste an hour updating your profiles than to spend five minutes on the phone pitching to a powerful client. Liz O’Donnell of LinkedIn, the US-based online business network, says: “The more channels of communication there are, the more disciplined you need to be in using them. Online networking is simply a tool whose effectiveness depends on how you use it.”
Alternatively, you may not bother at all, believing online networking, like lunch, is for wimps. I recently met a senior business figure who gazes down on those toiling in the vineyards of capitalism as from a lofty mountain top. Does this titan ever dabble on Facebook, I asked. “No,” he said, “but I think my secretary does.”
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