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Careers: CIOs Ban Social Nets


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By Ericka Chickowski on 2009-10-20

Do social networking sites serve as useful tools for connecting within the business world, or are they simply time-wasters? More than half of enterprise IT leaders lean toward the latter perspective, according to a new survey conducted amongst 1,400 CIOs by the employment experts at Robert Half Technology. The results conform with data collected from a previous study released by Nucleus Research earlier this summer; this slideshow compares results from both studies to paint a picture of social networking in the workplace.

 

  • Approximately 54% of CIOs report that their company policy completely prohibits employees from using social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter while at work.
  • 19% of CIOs say policy allows employees to use social networking sites at work, but only for business purposes.
  • Approximately 16% of CIOs say their companies generally take it on a case-by-case basis, allowing access to social media sites for limited personal use.
  • An additional 10% of CIOs are fairly liberal-minded about Facebook and the like. These technology leaders allow social networking while on the job for any type of personal use.
  • The final 1% of CIOs lack any type of visibility into the issue, reporting they didn't know what the company policy is on the matter.
  • Close to half of employees queried said they use Facebook at work and 77% of those who have a Facebook account use it at work.
  • Of those who do use Facebook at work, 87% said they could not define a clear business reason for accessing the site and some reported using it as much as two hours per day.
  • One in 33 employees say they use Facebook exclusively while at work.
  • Nucleus Research analysts estimate that employers could stand to gain 1.5% more productivity by banning Facebook in the workplace.