How Facebook can help your managers
August 19, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Communication, HR Tech, In this week's e-newsletter - Tech
Despite all the talk about the dangers of employees using social networking sites to waste time and ruin your company’s reputation, supervisors can use those same tools to benefit the company.
Of course, there’s still a lot of debate going around as to whether bosses and employees should “friend” each other on Facebook, MySpace and other sites. Some say that’s a line neither party should have an interest in crossing.
But others disagree, saying online contact can help build a relationship between employees and their managers, and therefore, the company as a whole.
Some possible benefits to managers setting up online profiles:
- Seeing glimpses of a boss’s personal tastes, non-work interests and family life could make him or her more approachable in employees’ eyes. That’s good for productivity, trust and morale.
- Supervisors can also learn more about employees, which could help them tweak their managerial styles.
- New avenues of communication could generate new problem-solving ideas.
Do you any of your managers communicate with employees through Facebook or other sites? Do you think the pros outweigh the cons? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Tags: Facebook, MySpace, social networking
August 25th, 2009 at 10:57 am
There is a fine line when it comes to facebook and some of the content posted there. Many facebook accounts are created for the purpose of communicating with close friends and family. Some of these relationships and information posted as a result of them may not be appropriate for the workplace. There is certain information and activities in our personal lives that may not be a good idea to tell co-workers about. It is important to keep and maintain a professional image, especially if you are a manager. There are ways to have a good relationship with co-workers and still maintain a professional image at work. If you must have a facebook account to communicate with co-workers, I suggest creating a separate one strictly for business relationships and keep it professional.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Patty’s response is well thought out. There are better ways to “humanize” managers and much better ways for managers to get to know their employees. I agree that if you simply must use Facebook, create a separate account for business. Better yet, talk to your employees.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
I think its a line that shouldn’t be crossed! During our orientation process we advise staff that part of our rules/codes of conduct include anything outside of work that may damage the perception or reputation of our agency. Therefore, we recommend they make their social networking sites not searchable so our clients can’t ‘look them up’. This comes so close to ‘big brother’ and also opens the gate for discriminatory practices; what about potential employment candidates whose facebook or myspace may be viewed prior to a hiring decision? What about the potential candidate who doesn’t have facebook or myspace account? Have we discriminated against them because they are not ’social networkers’?
December 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Look! I am all for allowing supervisors to Friend their direct reports (subordinates as so many of you call them), but that carries with it the responsibility to act straight up. I prefer to coach and teach how to act appropriately, then to try create idiot-proof policies and procedures. That is a huge problem with the HR community, and I’ve been doing HR work for more than 30 years. Trying to create idiot-proof policies puts unnecessary road blocks in the way of those creating the revenue stream! Notice I wrote “trying,” because the fact of the matter you cannot write idiot-proof policies. If a manager is going to manage with a big stick, instead of as a team leader, then it would be best for that manager to resist Friending your subordinates, but that is not likely to happen. As HR Pros, we need to bring those big-stick managers along to understand and see the advantages of teams and how to use those skills to advance the revenue stream.