10 Reasons Employers Should Block FaceBook

Long gone are the days when employers used to just have to worry about employees spending too much time talking around the water cooler or taking those infamous “smoke” breaks every 15 minutes.  A growing problem in the workplace (depending on your job) is people spending time just keeping up with friends and family on social media sites like FaceBook.  Let’s face it, what’s more fun finding out what a friend is up to or writing a daily report that nobody is probably going to read anyway?  The problem is… the use of various social media sites can really just get out of control to the point that it starts impacting work performance to the extent that the company does suffer.  Without further introduction, here are 10 reasons employers should block FaceBook:

  1. Productivity. This was briefly mentioned above but the reality is you can quickly get lost in FaceBook where minutes turn into hours and all of a sudden your work just doesn’t get done.  Remember you are at work for a paycheck, but the company pays you to do your job not to keep up with relatives that are miles away.
  2. Malicious Malware. Social networks today are known for malicious malware from spyware to viruses. When it comes to these threats, a business network can be a gold mine to hackers, costing an organization millions. This can be a real headache for system administrators and eventually the whole company.
  3. Illegal Content. Facebook isn’t known for the cleanest of content.  In fact, part of what makes it so much fun is that you can say just about anything you want to there (whether you should or shouldn’t).  This can lead to all kinds of problems in the workplace and can easily offend the other employees.
  4. Discrimination. Unfortunately, discrimination is still prominent in the world and therefore on FaceBook.  While that may be just distasteful in the comfort of your own home it can lead to very real discrimination and harassment lawsuits that the company just doesn’t want to deal with.
  5. Illicit Images. Okay we aren’t necessarily talking about all-out porn though that could exist.  We are also talking about that picture that your friend took last night after having a little too much to drink and felt like flashing the camera.  Hey, we’ve all been there…
  6. Network Use. While most networks have tons of bandwidth, there is no reason to let the network get bogged down in any way with content that is not work related.  You never know what may be posted on FaceBook nor how much bandwidth it might take to show those flip videos.
  7. Employees Are Paid To Work. Sorry if it seems repetitive but it’s really important to point out that you are paid to work and unless you are in social media yourself, not to be on FaceBook.
  8. Time Consuming Activity. I have spent literally hours on FaceBook playing games and/or tracing down all of my high school classmates.  There is just so much there that is interesting that before you know it you have shot a whole day.
  9. Confidentiality. Confidentiality is an extremely high priority issue within any organization in all industries. Especially when it comes to HIPAA within health care organizations, there are tough measures that must be taken to ensure that confidentiality is upheld at all times. Getting on social networks like Facebook could definitely lead to information from work ending up on the net.
  10. Networking Between Companies. When you employ people, you are competing with other companies. You definitely don’t want your employees on Facebook networking between companies, sharing information and giving away all your secrets. Even if this isn’t going on while the employee is on Facebook, it is a risk that you shouldn’t have to deal with.

Facebook is a great social media network and it serves a very important purpose.  It’s great to be able to keep in touch with people that could be around the corner or around the World.  So don’t misread this article and perceive it as an attack on FaceBook.  Quite to the contrary, we LOVE FaceBook, but there is a time and a place for everything and FaceBook is not meant for the workplace.