E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Keeping a Closer Eye on Employees’ Social Networking Will Give You More Than a Headache

Earlier on today, I bumped into one of those blog posts that you know is not going to leave you indifferent; quite the opposite, because it touches base on a growing trend that you know is going to cause plenty of trouble ahead, specially for most businesses out there who are starting to embrace social software as their next wave of collaborative and knowledge sharing tools. Even more when that trend collides, up front, with some fundamental privacy rights of knowledge workers. And maybe of employers, too! Have you read Keeping a Closer Eye on Employees’ Social Networking by Joshua Brustein? If you haven’t, you should.

It’s one of those very interesting, and thought-provoking, articles that touches base on the rather delicate issue of employers monitoring the online social software interactions of their employees during working hours. Goodness! Isn’t that something like opening Pandora’s box? And not knowing the full consequences of venturing into something that in the long run could turn out to be rather nasty? Well, I hope I am wrong. Very wrong.

Joshua develops some very interesting insights with regards to a new service released a few days back by Teneros which "makes it much easier for companies to keep tabs on their employees’ social networking activities". And when one keeps reading the article throughout to the end, one cannot stop thinking how much longer will companies keep trying to control & monitor their knowledge workers; or, even worse, when would they realise that a command-and-control attitude in today’s knowledge economy is everything, but *the* ultimate competitive advantage. Rather the opposite!

There are lots and lots of things I could say about the subject of monitoring and controlling employees’ online interactions in social networking tools and perhaps a single blog post would not suffice. Even the latest episode of The Sweettt Podcast, where we spent over an hour and a half talking about this very same subject, was not enough! We probably needed a whole lot more time to cover all of the various different implications with initiatives like Teneros’.

Without entering the realm of European privacy laws, and whatever other privacy related issues, which, by the way, I am not an expert on the topic, but I can imagine how there would be plenty of controversial discussion on this new service (If you do have the skills & knowledge on this very important item on privacy laws and monitoring employees’ activities I would love to hear from you through the comments detailing what some of those challenges may well be, at least, in Europe…), I would like to spend a few minutes developing further on some of the main consequences that implementing such kind of service would create on *any* corporate environment: trust and employee happiness. Amongst several others that I will probably touch base on at some point in time on this blog, as I am sure this topic will be a recurring one…

Right, instead of me putting together a couple of paragraphs on those potential consequences, let’s look into it from the perspective of a couple of businesses and their interests; let’s come up with Company A, that will make use of such new service to monitor the online social networking activities from its employee workforce; and then let’s have as well Company B, which is well known for its rather open policies on using social software tools while at work as their business tools.

So, which company would you rather work for? Company A, the one that still, in 2010!, tries to monitor and control who you are, who you connect with, who you share your knowledge across with? The one that decides what your productivity should be like, because you don’t seem to know better, in the first place? The one that decides what’s best for you, and for the business, not allowing you to make conscious professional decisions, because that’s what you were hired for in the first place, right? Remember?

In short, would you want to work for Company A that doesn’t seem to trust you as a knowledge worker to behave like the professional you were hired for in the first place and make use of all of the various Web resources available out there for you to keep innovating, sharing your knowledge and collaborating across the board using social software tools with other knowledge workers? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

Or would you rather work for Company B, where ALL knowledge workers (No exceptions!) have been encouraged, throughout the years, to spend time on the Web, hanging out in various social networking tools, specially those where your customers and business partners are already spending a good amount of time!, talking and connecting with them in meaningful conversations where you can co-create your company’s next generation of great products by keeping up with the rampant innovation happening in multiple levels established by those social networks?

Would you rather work for Company B, that trusts you would get "to decide what you do each morning" as a knowledge Web worker and be the responsible professional you were hired for in the first place? That company which understands that "Happy People Produce Quality" and that having the right tools to get your job done is not only necessary, but essential? That being happy at work connecting with your social networks across the board, where your knowledge resides deeply, delivers big results time and time again? Well, maybe, maybe not.

Which of the two companies would you rather work for? The one that doesn’t trust you as a talented, responsible and professional knowledge worker who wants to have an enduring career in that company? Or the one who fully understands what major benefits there are out there by unleashing the knowledge, expertise, know-how, experiences and informal networks of the entire employee workforce? You tell me…

Then, finally, I would ask you to ponder something else that most people seem to keep forgetting, but that time and time again it’s becoming a growing pain in the corporate world, and most of us don’t even realise it. What happens to that growing corporate pressure, known as the baby boomer generation about to start retiring in the next two to three years? How do you think Company A and Company B would be able to not only retain some of that knowledge before it goes away, and, most importantly, how do you think Company A and Company B would be capable of attracting new talent (Those younger generations who live in social networks) to slowly, but steadily, replace that maturing workforce.

Do you think that monitoring employees’ social networking activities out there is surely going to guarantee you that next wave of talented, amazingly interconnected, rather innovative knowledge workers that will pick up the baton of the maturing employee workforce on their way out and retain successfully part of that knowledge and keep your business thriving?

Right! I didn’t think so, either! Thus be careful with that headache. It’s coming…!

Tags: Monitoring, Monitor, Control, Controlling, Employees, Employers, Knowledge Workers, Workforce, Knowledge Web Workers, Trust, Employee Happiness, Teneros, Sweettt Podcast, Openness, Command and Control, Knowledge Economy, Social Capital, Knowledge Capital, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity