Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have a small company (6 employees) and I'm in dilemma whether to block facebook access on company computers or not? Facebook can be, for sure, great productivity killer but in other hand, i afraid that blocking could cause unrest. This means a negative impact on harmony and working atmosphere. What is you experience? Did you block it and if so, how did you do it?

If it's not used in business purpose then you should block it. Facebook is a great marketing platform but if it's not used in this purpose then there shouldn't be dilemma about blocking it. Your employees are paid to do work and not to waste time on facebook, it's very clear. I have banned it n my company so that it is not blocked on breaks and lunch time and i did it with a software. (http://www.facebooklimiter.com)

Maybe its good to let them use it and you should be hard on management. Asking weekly reports or daily reports of what work done? So if they are finishing work quickly and enjoying facebook, both you and them are happy....

I agree with Pbaxter.

Do you have evidence that Facebook is killing productivity in your office? If not, then I think you shouldn't worry about blocking it.

Keep track of what people are doing through daily/weekly reports if you want to track what everyone is doing.

Make sure everyone knows that they're being held accountable for their time at work before you start dealing with something that might not even be an issue.

I think that the best way to deal with this issue is for you to draft a social media policy for everyone in your team to sign - so that you won't have to worry what they will say in social networking sites ( not only Facebook, but Twitter and so on ).  You can also draft a social media guideline on how your team can use social media for business purpose and up to what extent can they mention your brand when posting on their personal social networking accounts.  Just my two cents here.

You can use a software such as k9 web protection to block it for a certain time. Give then access for 2 hrs a day.

It's sad that we as a society are so addicted to the internet that we can't go even a couple hours without getting on facebook to see what our friends are doing. 

Work is for getting things acomplished, not surfing the internet.  I would make it very clear.

I'm going to get a hair-cut today