The HR Specialist

In addition to providing plain-English HR advice that tells readers what they can do, not just what they can’t do, The HR Specialist shows HR professionals how to raise the profile of the HR function from the back office to the boardroom. Readers will find personal success by developing innovative solutions to general management problems.  Learn more about The HR Specialist and the two free reports you'll get when you subscribe...

Facebook costs employers 1.5% of productivity.

So says a new Nucleus Research study, which also estimates that nearly two-thirds of Facebook users access Facebook at work. On average, they spend 15 minutes on the site during work hours, but some admitted to frittering away up to two hours per day.

Among those using Facebook at work, 87% couldn’t define a clear business reason for it.

Facebook started as an online tool for college and university students to connect with each other. It has since expanded to allow anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address to open a free account. It is loosely organized into a variety of networks based on schools, location, employers, charities and other causes. Connections are known as “friends.” People update with short written blurbs about what they’re doing, pictures, video and the like.

Facebook has over 200 million registered users.

Gain control over your employees' Facebook use by crafting a social networking policy. It will insulate you from ill-advised Facebook postings your employees may make. And it will give you grounds to discipline workers who abuse social networking sites at work.

According to another survey, this one by Deloitte, only 22% of companies have a formal policy that guides employees in how they can use social networking at work.

A perfect social networking policy to cover these new media could be drafted using only a few words: “Be mature, be ethical, and think before you type.”  Ultimately, you may decide that such brevity is what you want for your business.

For advice on drafting a social-networking policy and sample wording, go to www.theHRSpecialist.com/socialpolicy. There you'll find seven questions to ask when drafting your social networking policy. Ranging from whether and when employees can use Facebook to how your social networking policy intersects with your harassment policy, these questions can steer you toward a policy that keeps productivity up. (Look for sample policy language at the bottom of the article.)