Why IT can’t solve your employee problem
We’ve got to keep our employees from Facebooking and Twittering all day, don’t we? They waste valuable work time on social networking sites — and we are paying them for it, dammit! Somebody better call IT. Have them block Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube…and throw in Pandora while you’re at it; nobody needs music at work.
These sentiments are floating around in office buildings all across our fair land.
Stop. Take a breath.
I’m going to let you in on a couple of secrets — secrets that will save you valuable time and money you’re about to spend drafting policies, convening committees and, ultimately, seeking out new employees. The secret?
You have a management problem — not an Internet problem.
Do your employees spend too much time online? Are they tweeting when they should be working? Are they posting pictures from last weekend’s drunken binge on Facebook instead of filing TPS reports? That’s not the Internet’s fault; it’s their fault. And it’s your fault.
Management loves that IT departments can use magic to block certain websites because it solves the problem immediately, right? If the employee can’t get to Facebook, they won’t waste all their time on Facebook. But I’ve been on two sides of the issue — as a manager and an IT professional — and I can tell you that blocking websites or restricting employee access to the Internet will not make them more productive. It will, however, make them find more creative ways to waste their time and your money.
Maybe they’ll chat with coworkers. Maybe they’ll make personal phone calls or text message their friends. Maybe they’ll read magazines or take excessively long lunch breaks. If they’re poor employees, the lack of Internet won’t make them any better.
Even worse, an overly restrictive Internet policy could make your better employees less productive. Some studies suggest that employees who take regular breaks to surf the net or check their e-mail are more productive than those who don’t. Why? Because they get a mental break and can come back to their work refreshed and ready to take on the task at full speed. Taking breaks helps alleviate mental fatigue, and your best workers will still get the job done.
So what do you do about the bad eggs? How do you keep them off Facebook?
Fire them.
If they’ll waste your time one way, they’ll waste it another. You don’t need a social media policy or a restrictive IT policy. You shouldn’t have to force your employees to work hard. Just hire the right people, keep them busy and happy, and the rest will take care of itself.
Treat your employees like adults. Trust them to make the right choices. If you don’t trust them, why do they work for you in the first place?
Update: Who gains the most from Paterson fallout?
I figured after the events of the past few days, I should probably give an update about my feelings on the mess surrounding New York Gov. David Paterson.
In the past week, Paterson aide David Johnson has been accused of domestic violence and suspended without pay. The news media — which dug up and printed the tenuous story based on anonymous sources — has blown the story up so big that two of Paterson’s top cops have resigned. Paterson is under investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for a phone call between Paterson and Johnson’s accuser. On top of that, Paterson is being accused of illegally accepting free World Series tickets from the Yankees.
Speculation flying around the media now is that Paterson will resign soon — and possibly face prosecution later.
So I bet you’re thinking I want to back down on all the stuff I said about the New York Times’ story about Johnson, right? Wrong.
Look: This crazy witch hunt just keeps getting crazier. And if you don’t think the same people who planted the Times story are the very same people calling for Paterson’s resignation, you just don’t know New York politics.
At this point, we have no idea what really went down between Johnson and his accuser. We don’t know what Paterson said to her. We do know that Paterson claims that she called him – not the other way around. So far, that’s all we’ve got.
Who’s doing the investigating? Why, none other than Andrew Cuomo — the guy the state’s top Democrats really want to run against Rick Lazio for New York governor.
This charade is just too easy to see through. Paterson is not a strong candidate. Even the president asked him to step aside. When Paterson refused, the party went to work, dug up whatever it could find, and planted the story. Now the investigation starts and the pressure on Paterson really begins. Behind closed doors, he’ll get a promise — just like Eliot Spitzer was promised — that if he resigns, he’ll never be charged.
If Paterson walks away, the Dems get what they want: Andrew Cuomo on the ticket. But if he doesn’t, and frankly I hope he doesn’t, he’ll have a helluva fight ahead of him. I don’t think he’d win re-election, but I also doubt he’d end up convicted of anything.
I’m no Paterson fan. I didn’t know who he was when he got elected. Hell, I voted against him, because I was one of the few people who remembered the Spitzer-Vacco attorney general race a decade earlier. But this recent turn of events smacks of the good ol’ boys network. Paterson hasn’t been particularly popular with that set. And this shows you exactly what happens when you don’t play ball with the corrupt senators and assemblymen we keep sending to Albany.
Anyone attacking Paterson right now needs to take a step back and think about who stands to gain the most from his downfall. Is it Johnson’s accuser? Not likely. She’s anonymous, and will probably stay that way. Lazio? Nope. He’s way better off running a campaign against a weak incumbent. Cuomo? Maybe. With Paterson out of the way, there’s no primary to run. It would save a whole lot of money.
But the ones who gain the most are the ones Paterson has been challenging all along, with his attempts at ethics reform and his bulldog attitude. When he talks about changing Albany, the corrupt party heads know that he’s not smart enough to be saying it just for votes; he actually believes it can be done. Paterson has been a threat to their way of life. And they know it.
If any good can come of this debacle, I pray that it’s the opened eyes of the electorate. But with the pathetic showing from the unquestioning media, I highly doubt it.