The Trades Union Congress today decided that employers should re-consider the blocking of various social networking sites, with particular emphasis on Facebook. It seems that rather sort more important issues like the striking of prison staff, they would argue this instead…

“It’s unreasonable for employers to try to stop their staff from having a life outside work, just because they can’t get their heads around the technology.”

I disagree with the banning of web-pages in the workplace anyway, if the employees are completing their work at the level expected and hitting deadlines on time then there is no reason. If they are missing them or not producing great work, then if these social networking sites are to blame, then I see no problems in removing access to them. I’m of the work ethic that if your at work your being paid to be there and work, not play around on social networking for extensive time periods.

However its a double edged sword, block access to social networking sites and you could upset your employees so much that their work levels drop even more than they were previously.

I’m glad I work from home and therefore I have to regulate my internet access myself, and as long as I get my work done to the required level and I don’t miss my deadlines, the odd 5minutes here and there don’t hurt. I would say to a point that it does improve my work as I take mini-breaks which take my mind off complex tasks, so when I come back I have a semi-fresh mindset again.

Overall though, I think the unions should be arguing over more important issues than this.