The Impact Facebook Has on Productivity Levels within an Organization - Literature review Example

Literature review: The impact face-book has on productivity levels within an organization. This assignment is about the impact that the newly formed forum of face-book has made to the productivity levels in an organization Introduction In simple mathematics, productivity is defined as the ratio of input vs. output. To further simplify, this measure is about determining the appropriation of resource allocation in an organization. One of the most important resources amongst all is the human resource factor. History is evident that the maximum productivity of human resource has been the prime target of an organization, and the other resources such as machinery, etc. are always optimally utilized. The debate of this argument is beyond the scope of this assignment. However, it is worth mentioning that history has been evident that over the years, there have been several factors that have influenced the productivity levels of employees in an organization. Ergonomics is the study of the environment prevailing in the arena where employees operate, and thus, justifies the appropriate presence of the office structure. At the same time, there are several other factors identified. Along similar lines, the impact of internet and its relevant applications is discussed in the following section. Impact of Internet & Relevant Applications About Internet There has been long time debate about the positive and negative affluences of internet at the work place but it really depends on its usage i.e. how the user benefits out of it. But with the rising concept of globalization, internet has become a need of the day for all business. About Internet Applications In the recent past, a number of applications have been developed for the entertainment of the internet users. Such applications include messenger services like MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, google talk, etc, while there have been other chat servers like mIRC, and chatting websites. The presence of such applications has enhanced a number of operations in the past, and their major benefits are communication and entertainment for all internet users. At the same time, organizations have witnessed a sharp decline in productivity due to the excess utilization of such applications within the organization. This not just keeps an individual occupied and busy away from the office work, but also utilizes an organization’s resources such as bandwidth, etc. for which the organization bears costs. Following section briefly discusses the two most renowned web based forums in this regard. Forums: Orkut & Facebook With the advancements moving on in chat forums and the un-said demand and need of the internet users to exchange information, pictures, videos and other forms of unstructured data, some gurus and entrepreneurs came up with the idea of forming web based forums such as Orkut.com and Facebook.com (later referred to as Orkut and Facebook respectively). Such forums assist in the phenomenon of global networking and socializing. Orkut was the pioneer of such a forum, but Facebook came up as an advance version and now with over 90 million users, it is visible everywhere in the world. Some views and opinions about the ground realities of Facebook are in the proceeding sections of this assignment. Views and Opinions on Facebook The extensive growth in this socializing-cum-networking mechanism allows executives and professionals to socialize amongst the people from various professions and backgrounds, share information, opinions, and views. The scope of this assignment is mainly to determine the threat that this forum posses to a business i.e. an organization, as discussed in the next section. Employee Usage of Web & their Productivity – the negative side It is a globally known and accepted fact that employee productivity is extensively hampered by their usage of web browsing. A simple walk to any office in a day clearly reveals that employees at all levels are surfing the internet, websites that are irrelevant to the course of the business. A number of studies have highlighted this fact that these are big costs for an organization. A study was recently conducted that showed over 60% respondents stating that Facebook has a major impact on the productivity of employees. It is also worth mentioning that loss of productivity is not the only issue associated to web browsing but downloading offensive and malware content are even bigger threats. Thus, lacking security features in the internet management and unlimited access to such websites posses a huge threat to the organization and its reputation on the whole. Fun at Work & Cost for IT Facebook is one of the most commonly used websites in offices. A survey recently conducted amongst IT managers about the traffic-flow towards websites, showed Facebook being the most accessed web amongst various offices. The survey (Mills, 2008) showed the following statistics: 82% employees use social media sites (mainly Facebok) for unofficial reasons LinkedIn was found as the most accessed website predominantly for professional usage Following is a pictorial presentation of the graph produced from the crux of the survey: Following section proposes various solutions to this issue. The Solution There have been a number of solutions proposed by various authors and critics to ensure such issues are addressed in an appropriate manner, some of them are mentioned as below: 1) Internet Security Management 2) Blocking the Websites 3) Restricted Access particularly in terms of Downloads and Uploads 4) Restricting Chat Access 5) Restricting Web Email Access 6) Implementation of advanced levels of security features – such as monitoring and managing inbound and outbound content and browsing, that would include web based emails and social networking sites such as Facebook The Impact on Productivity – a positive aspect The review of various literatures for this work yields that there are some positive aspects as well associated with Facebook access and browsing of employees in an organization. Some analysts (Boulton, 2008) feel that organizations should not ban Facebook in their respective enterprise. This argument follows the mass ban placed on Facebook by financial firms in their respective offices. The argument is that as Facebook claims to have over 90 million users, a ‘TRUST MODEL’ should be created, which means that the organization should define the means of participation on such a forum during work hours, educate their staff about the positives and the negatives associated with this, also educating them about specific guidelines pertinent to behavior ‘online’, corporate policies, and ethical behavior. Researches (Boulton, 2008) reveal that there are three major barriers to organizations allowing Facebook in their offices. Firstly, employees spend a lot of time in profile updates that it eventually ends up hampering their productivity. This is a double impact move; there will be people who would do such things, but at the same time, there will be individuals who would use this networking to improve their levels of productivity. Secondly, there is the bandwidth issue as Facebook and its applications being utilized at hundreds of points in an organization, may end up sucking the organizational bandwidth. Thirdly, since the profiles are public, the employees may unintentionally hamper the organizational image due to their association with the organization, as they may chat irrationally over the application. These barriers gear back to the TRUST model described and defined whereby a set of rules and guidelines are educated amongst individuals prior to setting them up for a venture. Facebook as Corporate Intranet – a case study Serena Software, a renowned software house in Singapore, made a break through announcement in November last year, i.e. 2007, declaring Facebook as its corporate intranet portal (Press Release, 2007). The theme was known as Facebook Fridays whereby the company’s employees across the globe would participate in this program on a weekly basis encouraging people to match fun with networking activities and connecting with people not just within the organization but globally to get a feel of the environment and to master the art of networking. In this program, the employees were to be given an hour on every Friday, to be spent particularly on Facebook, to network and connect with colleagues, co-workers, family, friends, and the customers. This initiative started on 2nd November 2007, in the 18 countries where the firm had its existence. As a part of the experiment, prior to launching it at full scale, the then CEO of the firm, Jeremy Burton used Facebook to connect to everyone from anywhere in the world. The Facebook-Fridays project was initiated by him to ensure that he brings the advantages that technology has associated with itself to its firm. He realized that Facebook is a tool that can be effectively used by managers and CEOs of various firms to ensure fun and work simultaneously. In today’s world, employees anyways use Facebook at their work stations, and keeping them away from it may cause hindrance, thus, using the same tool to stay in touch with the work was the strategy used by the CEO. Conclusion Not all technologies are bad; it is just that all of it has some negative and positive aspects associated. It is truly the way the technology is managed and utilized that defines its actual outcome. Surveys (Press Release, 2007) show that around 43% of the workers in the US are blocked from using Facebook. Using the case study, as discussed, can yield potentially higher benefits from the same application that people assume to be a curse and blockage to productivity of an organization. References Diane Neal (2008) Facebook: The missing manual New York. John Wiley & Sons, Inc Clint Boulton (2008) Gartner Analysts Decry Facebook, Twitter Bans at Work [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Elinor Mills (2008) IT pays the price for your fun at work [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Jenni O’ Grady (2007) Facebook face-off: Threat to productivity or business tool? [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Jeremiah Owyang (2008) Managers beware: Facebook isn’t the problem — e-mail is [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Nick O'Neill (2008) Facebook’s Impact on the Widget Economy [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Press Release (2007) Serena Software Adopts Facebook as Corporate Intranet [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Tom Davenport (2007) Why Facebook and MySpace Won't Change the Workplace [Internet] Available from [Accessed 19 November 2008] Read More