In the US, nearly 40 per cent of GenY chose an employer who allowed access to them in office, Sameer Garde, Managing Director, Dell India, said at a recent seminar quoting a survey.
It is only a matter of time before this trend catches up in India. While access to Facebook or Twitter is a strict ‘no’ in some companies, it is limited only to top managers in some organisations.
For instance, at Larsen & Toubro, employees cannot access Facebook or Twitter. At Infosys and Cognizant, it is only for a few seniors and in Wipro it is only through an internal social media site.
Under pressure
Off the record, officials say they are under pressure to provide free access to Facebook and Twitter but worried about a leak of clients’ confidential information.
“We are in an era of social revolution and we need to keep employees happy by embracing this revolution. This will help boost employees' morale,” Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman of the US-based software company Cognizant said in a seminar last year. The average age of its employees is 26.
E. Balaji, CEO, Randstad India, said companies are getting accustomed to the fact that there is a growing trend among the new-age workforce to be more ‘social’ at work, both online and offline. Some companies are open enough to adopt a flexible Internet policy where employees browse such social media sites for 30-60 minutes in a day. Larger companies look at this as an opportunity for collaboration and employee engagement, and have built their own internal social networking sites.
A Randstad survey on workforce trends shows that 80 per cent of Indian employees connect with their colleagues outside working hours through social media. “Instead of trying to buck the trend, companies should try to provide controlled access,” he said.
Restricted access
Sunil Goel, Managing Director, GlobalHunt India Pvt Ltd, an executive search company, said companies want people to focus on their core work and not get distracted during working hours. However, some companies allow some flexibility to use the social media sites from personal mobile devices and at the library and cafeteria.
“Too much restriction will not bring in results up to expectations. So, it is advisable to have restricted access to social media sites,” he said.
(Source: Wooing GenY with social networks at work by T. E. Raja Simhan, Business Line, March 21, 2013)
2 comments:
Well written and authenticated facts from leading surveys. Very interesting to read.
I feel that the Gen Y is more rebellious and find trouble in keeping within the guidelines that society/ employers have laid out for them. This also extends into the way Gen Y voice themselves on social issues. Instead of getting down to dirty marching or holding a protest, they are more inclined to voice their opinion directly as a Facebook status or Tweet. Today, I feel there are hardly any face-to-face confrontations. This adds fuel to the fire, for others of the same generation who face similar woes in their workplaces too and this is how these social networking sites are important to the Gen Y with regard to their workplace.
So totally depriving them the access to these sites at workplace might not be a fruitful restriction, as it is almost depiving their right to express virtually, but what can surely be done is placing a restriction on the time for such browsing, so that it does not disrupt core activities. The Gen Y should realize this too.
From a business perspective, it is one of the best inventions. Facebook has made customer interaction so much easier and accessible. And from a regular person's perspective, it's also good but it does have some negative effects as well. We all know how we all like to waste time checking our emails and facebook updates. Just need to add more responsibility into the mix and we'll be fine. I strongly agree that a happy employee is a productive employee and employers can extract benefit by allowing their employees to use social networks. It can be also taken as a great idea to increase link and share thoughts.
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