Facebook issues

A report from the BBC some days ago called Facebook ‘costs businesses dear’ refers to employees “wasting time” on social networking.

Mike Huss, director of employment law at Peninsula called on all firms to block access to sites such as Facebook. He asked: “Why should employers allow their workers to waste two hours a day on Facebook when they are being paid to do a job?”

What about time wasted getting tea or coffee, by those taking smoke breaks, or using their cellphones for private use while at work, or reading non-work-related emails? 

The kind of Ludite attitude exhibited by Peninsula seems to surface each time a new technology enters the work environment. 

The two reasons I have heard recently for blocking FB that I accept are from a school that found over 50% of its limited bandwidth was being used for FB; and my daughter’s university, Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, banning FB during working hours so students don’t hog time on communal PCs which are there for work purposes.