Social media in the work place.

Staff using social media in the work place can become a problem, productivity and performance can be affected by the time spent on it, it can lead to disciplinary action, as an employer it's essential that you clearly define expectations and consequences for misuse.

It's important as an employer that you find a balance for an employee as social media is an important part of many people's lives.

Using an employer's time to update social media or send personal emails can be a concern; whilst IT professionals are often asked to restrict the web sites an employee can use or monitor time spent on line this does not cover the time an employee can spend on a phone to do the same things.

Managers also face a difficult task in keeping an eye on employees as they cannot do this all the time and its quite easy for an employee to switch the screen before it can be seen.

All the big brother monitoring can have a detrimental effect on staff moral and create division between employees and employers, not to mention the time taken just to check that time is not being wasted.

Employees must be aware that by using social media they may well be giving evidence themselves on line as to their activities whilst at work, or for many, away from the office, could show exactly where they are, which may not be where they should be.

Care must be taken that all this monitoring does not generate a form of paranoia for both you and your staff.

Many employers have allowed the use of social media and the internet and placed the emphasis on performance rather than managing time spent, it can be argued that an employee that does a good job and spends time on the internet would do a brilliant job if they spent less time on line, but would they be happy at work?

Employers can find that productivity can go up if they embrace the technology as phones, tweets etc can improve communication and information exchange, the down side being that a face to face exchange cannot be replaced by a smiley face emoji.

We all see smokers take time to make a cup of tea and wonder off for a puff and to catch up with others, this down time is not very different from those that spend time shopping or watching the latest cute dog video on YouTube, the challenge for an employer is to get the balance right, an employee's on line use can have a darker side, through addictions such as gambling or the constant checking of messaging, and employers should understand the support available from specialist helpers.

Whilst this has in part turned into a pros and cons list, employers must make decisions and ensure any guidelines are communicated and documented in the correct way.

I would not encourage the use of a boilerplate policy to cover this, every company will be different, you may choose to put a complete ban in place, to adopt a reasonable use policy or use only with the permission of a senior.

Many firms choose to limit use to break times, as you read this no doubt some programmer somewhere is developing the next big thing and you must ensure any policy you put in place is reviewed regularly as an outdated policy can be a worthless policy.

Many Employment law solicitors can help develop a policy for you, but I recommend you consider taking advice from your own employees as well as unions; this will help you implement and communicate the policy.

Do not loose site of performance, if your member of staff worked from home and did a brilliant job for you, you may not know how much time they spent on line, you probably would not care because they were so good, would you take the same approach with someone in the office, ensure that you maintain your performance management tasks such as employee reviews.

Whatever you decide ensure everyone understands the standards you set and the consequences if an employee fails to meet those standards, do not create ambiguous rules and ensure these rules apply to everyone unless special circumstances change this, for example working machinery.

Take your time to ensure what you decide is the right thing for you and your employees, it has been suggested that the misuse of social media costs over £10 billion each year.