More and more companies are blocking social media in their office to eliminate distractions from work.Instead of blocking, companies must establish a culture of responsible social media use in the office.

Because social media have become major part of many people’s lives, companies feel that employees could end up using social media excessively during working hours causing disruptions and distractions at work. But completely banning social media from work may not be the best move for companies.  Companies should look at things this way- good employees would NEVER waste their companies’ time.  Bad employees will waste their time even without social media.  Even without social media, there are already plenty of distractions that could prevent a worker from fully focusing in work and giving it his all.  A worker could sit at his desk and choose to do nothing. It is useless to ban social media in office because employees could easily access these sites using other devices such as mobile phones.

What companies must focus on is educating staff and promoting a culture in the company wherein the employees use social media responsibly.  It would even be beneficial for businesses to encourage their employees to use social media to promote the company.  What companies should do is to implement sensible social media policies and then encourage employees to use social media to adhere to company values when using channels like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Sometimes,employees simply need the reminder that whatever they post online could spread over the internet and reach people they really didn’t intend the message to read.  You can tell your employees to not post anything online that they wouldn’t want their boss or their own mothers to read.  That would be the simplest guideline that your employees could use for their social media use.  Remind your employees that anything that they post online could come back to bite them and it is very important to remain pleasant in their dealings online.

It is also important to remind employees that whatever they post online is a reflection of their character and could also be viewed by others as a reflection of your company. Employees may be encouraged to share the values and the projects of the company through social media so that you have multiple people transmitting the same messages to the public maximizing your company’s social media exposure.

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