Research suggests that frivolous use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites could be costing the UK economy billions of pounds in lost production
Research by recruitment website myjobgroup.co.uk suggests that frivolous use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites could be costing the UK economy billions of pounds in lost production.
According to their survey, 6% of 1000 respondents said they spent more than an hour a day on social networking sites while at work. Extrapolating this up to the working population and applying some fairly dubious maths and assumptions this equates to a potential loss of ú14 billion (UK GDP is ~ú2 trillion; 6% of employees spending 1 hour per day is roughly 0.7% of all working hours wasted, and 0.7% of ú2 trillion is ú14 billion).
Although there are certainly grounds for suspicion about these figures (were, for example, respondents asked if they did this during breaks, out of hours or as part of their general work?), it is certainly clear that misuse of corporate Internet facilities for non-business can lead to significant lost productivity.
It is important to note that social networking sites are often beneficial to the business (Twitter for example is a useful source of prompt information for IT security techies), but that doesn't necessarily mean that unrestricted access is a suitable option. Fortunately, unlike many other productivity issues, technical solutions such as Smoothwall's Guardian product range are available to address this sort of misuse in a flexible and straightforward fashion.
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