UK Bosses Ban Facebook Over Reputation Fears

Nearly half of UK businesses – 48 percent – have banned their employees from using social networking sites at work over the past year, according to a new survey of 2,000 UK employees.

The survey, carried out by HCL Technologies with Lewis PR, found that aside from an outright ban, 63 percent of firms have actively discouraged employees from using social networks at work.

Business reputation

The reason behind the bias against social networks, according to 45 percent of responents, was not related to productivity, but rather was that employers “feared business reputation was at stake” if derogatory comments about the firm were posted on a social network.

HCL said that the survey shows British businesses are putting themselves at risk of “corporate suicide” by failing to take workers’ interests into account.

“Social networking is like food and drink to Generation Y workers, they are so used to communicating in a more open and collaborative way,” said HCL chief executive Vineet Nayar, in a statement. “Forward looking companies should be aiming to encourage social media activity amongst their employees rather than stifling it.

“While we always advocate responsible use of social networks in the office, banning them outright will impact employees’ approach to work in a negative way, having a detrimental effect on the business as a whole,” Nayar stated.

The findings echo a survey carried out by Webroot last year which found that about half of UK and US small to medium-sized businesses banned their workers from accessing social networks at work.

That study, however, emphasised the security concerns associated with social networks.

Malware infections

More than half of those polled by Webroot (53 percent) said they were very or extremely concerned about malware infections via social networks, while two out of five (42 percent) said they are very or extremely concerned about data leakage through social networking sites.

Nearly one-third (30 percent) said web-based threats caused the biggest security headache for them in 2010, and more than one in 10 (12 percent) said sensitive company information has been released via their employees’ use of social networking sites.