What a way to start the New Year! I got reprimanded for opening a Web site at office this week. No, it was not an obscene one. My high school chum, now ‘enemy’, Shrilata sent me a ‘friend request’ from a popular social networking site. While I feign to be in sync with things that are rocking the world, I have to admit, I have never visited Facebook, Myspace, Friendster or Orkut. Anyways, I opened the link and a window popped out “register to see Shrilata’s message”.

Sometimes connecting with old classmates can be trouble. No sooner had I entered my name and email details in the profile set-up page, our office system administrator Hariharan sent me a message: “Activity unrelated to business has been detected from your work station. Please close the window and carry on with your work.”

I ignored good old Hari’s joke and promptly went on completing the profile. Shrilata and I were best of buddies before her family left for Dubai. It was so nice of her to remember me and send me an invite.

Anyway, the next day I was asked to report to the HR head. After dillydallying for over 20 minutes, Savitha told me the bad news. I have been put under the watch list of my company’s new resource utilisation policy. “This basically means that your Internet usage rights at work have been put under controlled suspension. No using Yahoo/Gmail and obviously no accessing any social networking portal,” Savitha said with a sorry face.

Two months ago, our company, which currently handles a lot of offshore accounting work, stumbled upon a discovery. In spite of putting a significant number of hands on a project, the work was running behind schedule. Finally, the client sent the CEO a stinker of an email asking for an explanation.

The system administrator and his team transformed into tech sleuths who found that a particular Web site ate into work hours. While two employees spent an average five hours a week in social networking, the majority on the project spent at least two hours daily in accepting friends, writing scraps and doing ‘unproductive’ work that provided the company with no value. As a remedial measure, a policy of blanket ban was quickly put in place and the latest casualty was me. Yes, yours truly Swati!

‘Part of social networking sites’ success can be attributed to the entertaining escape from mundane office work. However, preoccupation amongst office workers, particularly the younger ones, has created concern among employers,” remarked Naresh Saarthi, an expert on Web behaviour.

Following the footsteps of companies in North America and Europe, which began by taking steps to block or restrict access to these sites after noticing the large amounts of time their employees were spending on them, Indian corporates are the latest to join the bandwagon.

“All they do is viewing photos and exchanging messages Swati. You call that productive? An office is not a playground. In the UK, people can actually be dismissed for all these stuff,” my immediate colleague, Ramesh, shot back. Of late he has been seeing and playing the devil’s advocate.

Professionals such as marketers, public relation specialists and even journalists are known to make good use of social networking sites for ‘professional networking’ purposes. Let’s see what Chetan Goel, who runs a start-up targeting the communication infrastructure business, has to say. “Managers in all departments are exploring the possibilities of using these type of sites to benefit the business. So far, a definite link between use of the site as lead provider and demonstrable results has not come up. If this is the case, we will open them up.”

But productivity or the lack of it is not the only raison d’être that companies are restricting right of entry to certain Web sites. IT security expert Shankaran says that their principal apprehension is the massive weight, download-intensive sites place on a company’s IT infrastructure.

“Swati, unrestricted use of anything in the office is not welcome. You have offices checking up phone bills to scrounging for the last bit of evidence indicating use of official calls for personal use. The potential risks such social networking pose are huge. Links to streaming video and music to YouTube, once activated eat into precious internet bandwidth,” he noted. I understand that Internet is a key resource and it does not come free. The pressures of the top management to justify costs can be great, but why blame it on social networking sites. What about Internet porn? Is it dead?

And there are others like Sathish Kumar from a Chennai based global IT firm. Unable to use social networking sites from his office, he keeps in touch through good old mails. “Sometimes, there is chain of mails exchanged when I want to talk to a friend of mine. My office has blocked chat messages too,” he lamented.

But increasingly, the argument against social networking sites is that they pose a threat to security. And, of course, the killer argument — corporate image. By virtue of some teenagers getting into trouble allegedly through one of the social networking sites, the public in general came to know of them only recently. Negative publicity helps detractors.

Do we become overtly friendly on the Internet? “Too much personal information is shared on these sites. On top of that, there should be a fine but distinct line between professional and personal life. Sites like Orkut help to make them hazy,” complained Peter Finch, associate professor of corporate governance in an overseas university.

Some say, it is important to remain flexible in these maters. “We have utmost conviction in our employees.

It’s not a very positive thing to completely ban sites. My company never blocked access to any of the social networking sites. However, our workload is increasing and folks don’t have enough time to spend on these sites,” remarks Praveen Kumar, a project manager in an IT consulting company based in Bangalore.

Coming back to my situation at office, my boss called me in. Seeing me visibly upset, he said, “Come on. You know we respect you. It’s just that we have to be a bit careful. Furthermore Swati, you make a good example. All your Web-browsing rights are restored. They were never taken away. But you know, it dissuades other people. Everybody is not as level-headed as you,” he said, finishing the last sentence with a smile.

Maybe there are too many distractions for employees today. Internet is the biggest source. But there is no use blocking these sites because employees eventually waste more time finding ways around them.

I heard Web sites offer platforms through which you can access these sites and virtually go undetected. Be it the latest evolution of office distractions, or label it as just a substitute for the coffee machine or water cooler breaks — the jury is still undecided on access to social networking sites at office.

Given the business benefits, carrot of connecting with old pals or discovering individuals having common interests — social networking is here to stay, whether or not in office is highly debatable.

Write to me with your comments on whether social networking sites have a place at work or not. Is it a necessary evil or are its uses ‘hyped’?

Catch me here again in seven days.

*****

Responses to Episode-172 on the issue: ‘Culture couture: What’s wrong in partying?’ ( Business Line , December 31, 2007).

Almost all of us embrace and overreact to all the economic and technological changes that happen around us, but fail miserably to notice the changes that happen in the cultural front. We accept and sign the “terms and conditions” part (even without a fair understanding of the fine print) to most of the legal papers, right from a cell phone request to a housing loan document. Definitely we don’t have much clue about such documents.

Look at Gen-Y. They are around us almost all through our lifetime. It is a fact that we pretend to tolerate their activity every day; the only missing link is ‘acceptance’. Three things that an individual cannot change are ‘taxes’, ‘death’ and the very ‘change’ that is happening around. “Accept and enjoy” and let such topics not come up in 2008.

Krishnamoorthy, Mangalore

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