Hey big organizations, trust your employees!

I was listening to episode 6 of MADPHX (a great local podcast in Phoenix) and I started thinking a lot about comments made in the last few minutes of the episode regarding the filtering of social media at schools, in government offices and even in private enterprises.

Most big corporations and government offices are concerned about social media. They don’t understand how to use it effectively and they fear it more than online shopping, webmail and weap0ns. Yeah, really.

Are organizations concerned with phishing and other security risks posed by social media sites? Of course. Are social media sites the only way malicious people can find a way into an enterprise or government office? Of course not. Any computer with access to the internet can be an avenue of attack.

So what’s the real issue? Organizations are afraid that their employees are wasting time on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Having security as an additional reason only makes it easier to justify blocking them. But as Derek pointed out on the MADPHX episode, there’s no “people policies” which dictate when coworkers can talk to each other. People can waste half a day talking face to face in the office about their fantasy football teams, but commenting someone’s Facebook status is banned.

I find this stigmatization of social media absolutely ridiculous, because the whole issue comes down to trust. Organizations don’t trust that their employees will regulate their own social media use and get their jobs done. Here’s a news flash for businesses: your employees don’t sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, banging out work. They take breaks, they talk to coworkers, they go out for lunch. They need to. Productivity and attention span suffer if they don’t. So what if social media has been added into the mix?

If you’re going to hire a person and trust them with important aspects of your business, why can’t you trust them to figure out when to check Facebook and when to do their job?