Facebook the new menace

Networking is the need of the hour and especially for HR but this new report released by ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry) shows how productivity is going down thanks to "FACEBOOK"

According to the report

Facebook is becoming a problem for employers at offices in India, as employees have started spending so much time on the social
networking site that it is beginning to affect productivity, a new survey has revealed.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) have found in their survey that office staff on average spend an hour a day on sites like Facebook, resulting in a loss of productivity measuring 12.5 per cent.

The study noted: "Close to 12.5 per cent of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours."

Seemingly, the workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for "romancing".

"As a matter of fact, [the] growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use," the BBC News quoted Assocham secretary general DS Rawat as saying.

As part of the study, a total of 4,000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 from different cities in India including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai (Bombay), Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Kanpur, were questioned.

It was observed that nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time.

Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at office.

Also, 83 per cent of the employees think there is no harm surfing at work during office hours.


This report puts one question to me is whether access to Facebook, Myspace and other social networking websites is allowed in organizations? If yes does it put to rest the myth that these websites were banned which may encourage more employees to use it using proxy links or is it access via mobile phones? And the usage of these websites for romancing? I think this puts a serious question on the long standing question of employability. If people cannot resist the temptation of romancing while in office through a social networking website then how trusty can this employee be ?

Questions to be answered

Cheers

Arvind